


One More Sleep Till Christmas

by Kyele



Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - A Christmas Carol Fusion, Emotionally Stunted Character, M/M, Minor Internalized Homophobia, Past Emotional Abuse (Parent to Child), References to Christianity, References to Dickens, References to Shakespeare, References to Torture, References to suicidal ideation, the dog lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Susanne de Richelieu is dead, to begin with. To be sure, the news is difficult to credit. Even her son Armand, upon first reading his older brother’s letter, hardly believes it. Susanne is not the sort of woman who just lays down and dies.</i>
</p>
<p>The Musketeers/Christmas Carol AU that <s>no one</s> two people asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> At long last, the Christmas Carol AU ~~that no one asked for~~! (I stand corrected: you may all blame [nikki](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/pseuds/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox) and [bean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Theonenamedafterahat/pseuds/Theonenamedafterahat), who did, in fact, ask for this.)
> 
> Fair warning: I love long sentences, complicated grammar, and obscure punctuation. Usually I edit all of that out before I inflict in on you guys, but in homage to Dickens' style (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it), I'm letting it out somewhat more. In short: here there be (semi)colons.
> 
> Updates will be twice weekly, Tuesdays and Fridays, unless otherwise mentioned. (Expect a break over Christmas itself.)
> 
> Title is from my favorite Christmas carol ever, ["One More Sleep Till Christmas"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDhG25fgbdo) from the Muppet Christmas Carol.
> 
> EDIT TO ADD: YOU GUYS I AM NOT WORTHY but in spite of my unworthiness I will revel in these two gorgeous things: an incredible [aesthetic post](http://timeforalongstory.tumblr.com/post/138441607810/) for this fic ([Nikki](http://theregoesallthecottoncandy.tumblr.com)) and [a fanmix](http://8tracks.com/theonenamedafterahat/spirit-remove-me-from-this-place) ([bean](http://bean-about-townn.tumblr.com/)). I love them both to itty bitty pieces, and I have no idea how I got so lucky as to have you all as frinds, but thank you, thank you! :)

Susanne de Richelieu is dead, to begin with. To be sure, the news is difficult to credit. Even her son Armand, upon first reading his older brother’s letter, hardly believes it. Susanne is not the sort of woman who just lays down and dies. Certainly not of something so mild as a fever. She’d always been such an enormous, outsized presence in his life – so much larger _than_ life – that Armand had expected it to be something equally large and outsized that would take her life in the end. Struck by lightning, perhaps. Run over by a carriage. Poisoned by toadstools put in her dinner by a scheming cook. But no. No, if Alfonse’s letter is to be believed – and Alfonse’s word is as good as two other sources, upon doctrinal matters, at least – Susanne had taken a fever which, due to her advanced age and despite everything the doctor could do, had proven fatal. She’d died two days past; Alfonse has written directly, and the funeral is to be held as soon as Armand can get himself back to the Richelieu estates – for of course even in death Susanne must make a stir, and ensure that all her neighbors know her very great importance and holiness, by having her favored son the great Cardinal Richelieu perform her funeral rites.

No doubt in front of as many of their acquaintance – Armand doesn’t think, _friends_ – as can be summoned on such short notice. Armand will have to bring some courtiers down with him to properly live up to her expectations. And his own, of course. He has a position at court to think about: and appearing properly shocked and grave, grieving in the appropriate way for the appropriate length of time, and in full view of as many of Louis’ court as possible, will be a boon to his position. The last such boon Susanne will ever be able to give him. Susanne had, over the course of his life, given him quite a few. And sunk as many hooks into him as possible at the same time, of course.

Armand-Jean du Plessis de Richelieu arranges his features into an appropriately shocked mien. Moving slowly, as if almost in a dream, he lifts the ornate cross around his neck and kisses it.

“Armand?” The voice belongs to the head of Richelieu’s personal guard, one de Jussac by name. As if startled, Richelieu looks up. “What is it?”

“The most terrible news.” Richelieu shakes his head sadly, watching Jussac’s eyes widen. “My mother – my poor mother – has gone home to be with God.”

“Oh, no,” Jussac breathes. God love him, Richelieu thinks, but Jussac has no filters at all. He’s honest, and earnest, and loyal, and now his face fills up with quite sincerely felt sympathy. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Armand.”

Loyalty is a valuable thing: and Armand knows how to value it. He’d taken Robert de Jussac into his service young and treated the man as well as he’d ever treated any of his own siblings. In return, Robert has treated Armand far better than any member of Armand’s own family. Better than the sisters who’d escaped their controlling mother through marriage as soon as ever they could; better than the middle brother, Andreas, who’d fled the country to accomplish the same goal. Better even – and now we begin to come to a metric with some meaning – than Alfonse, the eldest, whose letter Armand even now pretends to reread with quivering lip. True, Alfonse _had_ been the eldest son, and so had been unable to avoid a larger than equal share of their mother’s attention. And true, Alfonse had had the audacity to refuse to take up the Bishopric and follow their mother’s wishes in increasing the family legacy and fortune. Had actually retired to a cloister, and left Armand the only remaining son who could take the weight of their mother’s attention: an action for which Armand should by rights despise his eldest brother. And yet Armand had never forgotten that Alfonse had been kind to his child-self when kindness had been a coin deemed worthless by their family.

And then Robert had been _more_ than kind to Armand. So to Robert goes the preference; but Armand does not forget, even so, that Alfonse had once been kind.

“I shall have to go home, of course,” Richelieu says now. “The funeral – I cannot leave it to old Father Joseph.”

“Naturally you must do it yourself,” Jussac agrees at once. “Will you leave today?”

“First thing tomorrow, I think. There is a great deal I will have to do to prepare for my absence.”

“Of course.”

“I will leave for court now, in fact.” Richelieu rises.

“But your breakfast!”

Indeed, the breakfast over which Richelieu had been opening his letters is only half-eaten. Armand regards it consideringly. Susanne would have disapproved of such waste in the strongest possible terms. It is therefore with great – albeit well-hidden – satisfaction that Armand says, “I simply cannot eat another bite.”

“Oh, of course not, I’m so sorry,” Jussac says quickly. “I’ll ring for the maid and then we can go.”

Richelieu holds up a hand. “With so much to do, I’m afraid I must ask you to rearrange your duty schedule for the day,” he says gently. “One of the others can guard me very well and look imposing in front of the right peacocks. I need you here.”

Jussac smiles, pleased at the compliment. And the compliment is sincere. Jussac need not know – must never know – that Richelieu also wishes to be free of him, at least during his machinations at court. Jussac is Richelieu’s right hand, and Jussac’s loyalty is beyond question: still Richelieu prefers, for reasons he doesn’t care to examine too closely, that Jussac not be present for some of Richelieu’s more delicate work.

I say delicate, mark you, because that is how Richelieu himself thinks of it – delicate – but between you and I better words may be used. The plain truth of the matter is that Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duc de Richelieu, is often two-faced, frequently a liar, and more often outright cruel than he wants anyone to know. Indeed, more often than he even knows himself, that cold, unfeeling, callous man! for having been raised under Susanne de Richelieu’s care – in the seclusion of Indre-et-Loire, without the countervailing influence of a neighborhood or a governess or even so much as a servant of about the same age – Armand-Jean had grown to manhood with his sense of rightness somewhat twisted, like a wagon with one wheel out of alignment and spinning loose. Armand’s conscience does not quite roll forward with all smoothness, and he is quite as often cruel out of ignorance, as he is out of malice.

Which is not to say that there is never malice. Richelieu may be as capable of feeling as any other man, but that has its ill turns to add to its well: and having seen young that his softer feelings would be ridiculed, but his harsher ones praised and encouraged, perhaps it is little wonder that at five-and-thirty years of age Richelieu is set down by many as the most villainous man at Louis’ court.

It is to this court that the Cardinal now turns his steps, having paused only long enough to refresh his toilette and add sundry touches designed to highlight the impression of mourning. Nature needs no help from artifice to make Richelieu appear gaunt and pale, a creature of bone and sinew animated only by a driving, relentless fire. This fire could even be said to be the fire of passion. Richelieu is passionate about many things: power, for one; money, for another. The good of France, for a third, for which France ought to have been grateful; and is, except that Richelieu’s care is often indistinguishable from another man’s malice. The differences are only felt later, and usually by an entirely different group than had been disadvantaged to begin with. Small wonder then that no one will use the term _passion_ to pertain to His Eminence, appropriate though it would have been. For to most _passion_ will have presupposed empathy, consideration, compassion – in short, the very emotions which, as I have already explained, Richelieu refuses to feel.

Ah, but every rule has its exception! and as it is often said, that every body has their match – and as this match will become central to our story later on, as you will see – I would be remiss indeed if I did not draw the curtain back a little, and show my readers the portions of Richelieu not commonly left on display to the common man. For Richelieu did not go to court this morning only to inform the King of his mourning, nor merely to see and be seen in his newly tragic mien. He had another reason and a more selfish one; or perhaps I ought to say, in deference to the choice of word which I have already made, a more _passionate_ one.

Richelieu made his representation to the King with aplomb, and having received with apparently grateful humility the words of his Majesty, who said all that was proper in the situation, turned aside readily to receive the duplicates of those compliments which all the courtiers present felt it prudent to bestow. Her Majesty exerted herself as well to condole with the bereaved Cardinal. She even found it within herself to offer him her hand, and this was no mean feat, considering the very great dislike in which she was widely known to hold Richelieu. It will surprise no one to learn that they had disagreed often since her marriage to the King. The cause of this was, that Queen Anne felt a softer course would be wiser for the governance of France, but King Louis was more disposed to be influenced by his Minister than his wife. And the consequence of this was, that Richelieu was often triumphant, and that Anne loved him – and her husband – the less for it. So for Anne to offer Richelieu her hand was indeed a most unusual mark of condescension, and Richelieu expressed himself properly upon receipt, seeming to feel all the comfort from this that anyone could have supposed the Queen’s action to excite.

But the truth is, dear reader, that there is only one comfort Richelieu wanted: and after having finally finished with the court, he betook himself elsewhere to acquire it.

Now at the court of Louis XIII at this time there were many nobles, and in such number there was of course great variety. And yet among them all was a most unusual man whose name has come down even to the present day. I speak of course of the Comte de Treville – or, to give him the name by which he is better known, the Captain of the Musketeers.

“Jean,” Armand says the moment he reaches the small office he keeps in the Louvre, and finds the Captain waiting there for him.

For this is the third name by which the Captain of the Musketeers might be known: he had been christened _Jean_.

“Armand,” Jean replies with a sigh. Then for a few moments there is no conversation.

Many romances have been written of the Musketeers, and many stories told. And yet surprisingly few of them concentrate on the leader of this remarkable body of men, and though that body is not where this story purports to put its focus, the leader thereof plays a significant role; wherefore I would be remiss if I did not pause and draw the reader a brief sketch of Jean de Treville.

To imagine Jean-Armand du Peyrer, Comte de Treville and Capitan of the Musketeers, is to imagine a Gascon nobleman and military man who has not let his current prominence make him forget he was once an unknown boy of little means who had made his way in the world on the strength of his respected surname and strong arm. His military achievements are well-known to history and require no further mention. He is a man of middling age at the time we set our story, but from the many admiring glances which the ladies of the court cast his way, you may be assured that age has in no way affected the fine figure he cuts: his shoulders are broad, his arms and legs well-muscled, and his face not altogether displeasing. Chief among his features for beauty are his eyes, which are a sharp, clear blue. His many scars, all honorably earned, rather enhance than diminish his rugged aspect. Joined to this is an honest mien and a reputation for iron devotion to a cause. Taken all together, then, it is no wonder that he is the most sought-after bachelor of the age.

Alas, those ladies who flutter their fans at him do so in vain! Treville has no turn for their company. He prefers a hard body next to his own, and I may as well say at once, before the reader becomes any more confused, that he and the Cardinal de Richelieu have been lovers for many a year.

This silence then to which I so tactfully alluded, is not the silence of two men with nothing to say, but rather the silence of two lovers meeting again after too long a time apart. For although the Captain and the Cardinal see each other at court daily, the reader will readily comprehend that at these times passion may not be indulged. Indeed when it comes to politics the two are more likely to shout at each other than to murmur endearments. It is a curious relationship. But I will beg the reader’s indulgence in asserting, that it is no less real, than any more openly and publically acknowledged.

“I am so sorry to hear about your mother,” Treville murmurs now, when at last the lovers separate, being obliged at this point to do so for lack of air.

Richelieu sighs. “I had known she was sick,” he confesses. “But I never expected the illness to prove fatal. My mother has – had – such a force of will and personality, that I always expected it to take something momentous to carry her off. And yet in the end it was only a fever.”

Treville presses Richelieu’s hand warmly, caressing the soft palm. “You are going back to perform the funeral?”

“I must.”

“Of course you must. She was your mother.”

“My dear, I think you have always felt that bond to be stronger between she and I, than ever she or I have.”

To this Treville only sighs. Having lost his mother young, and regretted the loss keenly all his life, he naturally supposes that all others are grateful for theirs. The little Richelieu has told Treville of the true relationship of Susanne and Armand has not disturbed him in this belief. I will leave it to the reader to decide, whether Richelieu does not put the matter more strongly out of respect for his mother, or because he does not wish to disturb his lover’s idyllic illusions.

“When are you leaving?” Treville asks next, reverting to practicalities, or so it appears to his lover.

“Tomorrow morning. Of course I cannot delay. It will be a full day’s travel, with all that must be brought, and I do not like the look of the weather.”

(I have not yet mentioned the season, and the reader would be forgiven for having assumed, with all this easy talk of travel and fevers, that it is spring, or at the very least a late winter: but that is not at all the case. The winter season is approaching rather than receding, and indeed it wants only a few days to Christmas. The look, therefore, which Richelieu dislikes, is a greyness of the sky and a sharpness to the wind which bespeaks an approaching snowstorm, which would render the journey to Indre-et-Loire difficult to accomplish in a timely manner.)

Treville is naturally aware of both the weather and the season, and he nods slowly at Richelieu’s statement. “You must mean to spend Christmas at your estates, then.”

“It is more that I see no alternative,” Richelieu sighs. “You know I would prefer to remain here. I will have to leave a great deal to my bishop.”

Here Treville smiles indulgently. Richelieu’s dislike of delegation is in truth one of his better features, proceeding as it does from a belief that any duty accorded to him has been so for a reason, and ought not to be shirked. He is not one of those ministers who enjoys his title while others labor behind the scenes. Indeed, I may say it to his credit, that no one works so hard or long at the Palais-Cardinal than the Cardinal himself.

Then Treville says, “Perhaps a quiet family Christmas will do you good.” Treville’s gaze turns faraway, and it requires little of his lover’s famed insight to observe that the Captain is thinking of his younger days, and somewhat more fondly than they deserve.

Here, too, the Captain labors under something of a misapprehension: for much as he does not comprehend the true nature of the relationship between Armand and Susanne, neither does he quite realize how little a _family Christmas_ had been valued by the Richelieu family, and how little, consequently, it would be likely to do the Cardinal good.

Once again, however, Richelieu forbears from illuminating his lover’s understanding. Instead he replies, “If it were to be a quiet family Christmas, perhaps it might. But my mother was well-known in her generation, and there are several nobles who are already making plans to travel with me to her funeral. I’m afraid there will be very little quiet and a good many strangers instead.”

“Oh!” Treville says. He sounds a surprised, at first, but then begins to nod. “Of course, I should have known that your mother would be remembered. So you will be entertaining, then? It will not only be a family affair?”

“Not at all,” Richelieu says, admirably concealing how much this pleases him. A _family affair_ would be pleasant to no member of the Richelieu family, Armand not even least among them. Whereas the affair Richelieu is actually planning, one of politics and cold-blooded, sharp-edged dealing, pleases him very much.

It is not that he does not do these things in Paris; but in Paris the Cardinal has many faces. In the seclusion of Indre-et-Loire, with the guest list carefully screened, Richelieu may let several of them drop. He is very much looking forward to the opportunity to shed some of his layers of pretense for a time.

Treville seems to consider. Richelieu amuses himself by tracing patters on his lover’s cheek, and imagining the tryst he hopes to arrange for tonight.

These pleasant thoughts are shattered when Treville places a hand on Richelieu’s, stilling it, and says “Do you know, Cardinal, my father was quite a friend of your mother’s?”

This catches Richelieu’s attention most effectively, and he stares at the Captain with an entirely unfeigned look of surprise. “They never met!”

Treville laughs. “Of course they didn’t; what does that matter?”

“Unless you claim they carried on their friendship via blind correspondence – ”

“Oh, hush, Armand; to you I claim nothing of the sort. But the rest of court needn’t know that. My father is dead, as is your mother: who would gainsay it?”

“But for what purpose would you make this claim?”

(I will assure the reader here that Richelieu is usually quite perspicacious; indulge him, therefore, in his momentary blindness.)

“So that I have an excuse to attend the funeral, of course.” Treville is smiling now, fond and indulgent. “No one at court would believe that I would come to console _you_ ; but if I appeal to the bonds of filial duty, and attend as the representative of my father, it will pass without more than a few murmurs. And then you need not be alone.”

Richelieu says nothing to this. When he does not react, Treville’s smile softens. “You shouldn’t have to spend Christmas in the country, surrounded by a pack of courtiers who don’t care about you, mere days after your mother’s funeral.”

Now one may suppose that Richelieu has little to pretend with his lover; but alas, that is not the truth. For it is an odd quirk of fate that the closer someone becomes to Richelieu, the higher the esteem in which Richelieu holds that person, the more he finds himself needing to conceal. From Treville, as with Jussac, Richelieu conceals as much in some areas as he reveals in others. Physical intimacy the two may share (and indeed often do); emotional intimacy comes harder. I will leave it to the reader to meditate on why a man such as Richelieu might feel more able to reveal his cool calculations to other schemers than to those whom he claims, quite sincerely, to love.

What Richelieu feels now is a sudden horror. He has already gone to some great trouble to arrange this funeral, and the concomitant Christmas country sojourn, in a particular way: that is, as a spectacle. The right servants are being sent on ahead, the finest china unpacked. The ideal nobles are being handpicked to attend. And _ideal_ in this case does not mean that they are particularly close to the family, nor that they are aligned with Richelieu. On the contrary. The affair Richelieu is stage-managing is to be an entirely cold-blooded one. The funeral mass and the Christmas tree are to be the stage-dressing in a play of manners and politics, where favors are traded and alliances made, patrons exchanged and plots consummated over a brandy and the _Pater Noster_. To put it simply, Richelieu intends at this party to be his worst self, and he recoils instinctively from allowing his good-hearted lover to observe what Richelieu has always kept carefully hidden.

Therefore Richelieu says – clumsily, in his panic – “But you cannot!”

Predictably enough, the first effect this statement has is to wipe the smile from Treville’s face, which absence immediately leaves Richelieu bereft.

“And why not?” the Captain says, taken aback. “Of course, our connection must remain hidden – ” (for I must remind the reader, with regret, that the love which these two men share would see them both to the scaffold were it known) “ – but the excuse of paternal loyalty will suffice on my part, particularly since Gascons are said to take ancestor-worship to its extreme. You can shake your head over it, if you like, and call it one step removed from paganism. And as for the rest – if the house-party is too large for us to meet privately, that’s all right. You can’t think I expect anything on that score regardless. I shall be a perfect courtier.”

He would, Richelieu knows; and therein lies the problem. No one else present will be a perfect courtier. Precisely the opposite. That is, after all, the entire point. And it is into this snake pit that Richelieu’s lover proposes to walk – never supposing, in the innocence of heart which Richelieu values above more things than he admits even to himself, that he will find anything worse than a funeral and a nativity service. Treville, in recalling his love for his own mother, and imputing those feelings to Richelieu with simple generosity, thinks only of bringing comfort to one he loves.

“You’ll do better to have me there, won’t you?” Treville says.

 _Yes,_ the Cardinal thinks, which startles him exceedingly: not the sentiment, which he perfectly acknowledges, but that his thoughts should state so plainly what he has not given them leave to consider. There is no question that Richelieu will do better with Treville at his side. That is a truth as universal as the promise of salvation through Christ that the Cardinal preaches weekly. The question is one of importance. Richelieu had been taught young, and truly believes, that love is unimportant: and though that has not stopped him from feeling it, it has governed his outward actions so thoroughly that very few believe him capable of that feeling.

“Won’t you, Armand?” Treville repeats, when the Cardinal has still not answered. A desolate note has begun to creep into his voice.

The Cardinal hates himself for that. But he has hated himself for many things before, and never let it prevent him from doing what is necessary.

He catches his lover’s hands. “It cannot be,” he says, attempting a gentleness which is entirely lacking from his nature.

“Cannot? Or will not?” Treville’s eyes move rapidly over Richelieu’s face, searching for a softening which is not present. “I do not see that it _cannot_ be done. Where is the error in what I have proposed? Tell me that, Armand. Show me your intellect. Point out to me that flaw which is to you so obvious.”

This is flattery, but Richelieu understands very well that it is not meant to praise. It is meant to cut. Richelieu has, in the past, undertaken to make Treville a better politician. It hurts Richelieu to see his lover torn apart by Louis’ court, when a few smiles and careful words in the right place might prevent it. Now Richelieu learns that his lover has taken those lessons well, for his words pierce.

Richelieu could point out flaws. He can see several; minor, perhaps, and correctible, but he could name them.

He does not. And here is why: because Treville will never believe, is incapable of believing, that any flaw exists which is sufficient grounds to deny his presence. If Richelieu wishes to keep Treville away, he must eschew the notion of _cannot_. He must make it _will not_.

Here, then, the reader may observe the deadly flaw at the core of that diamond heart. When faced with a choice between love and pride – when asked to accept comfort, and in doing so reveal some element of his true character, or to push it away and hurt the giver – Richelieu chooses the latter.

Richelieu releases his lover’s hands. “Stay here,” he says. “Tend to your men, guard the King. I will be back after New Year’s.”

Treville steps back. “This is your final word on the matter?”

“It is.”

“No,” Treville says. “Think again. Armand – ”

“It cannot be.”

“Armand, do not you love me?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then I will go.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Once again Treville searches Richelieu’s face. Once again he does not find that for which he searches.

“Why, Armand?” Treville repeats.

Once, many years ago, Treville had asked Richelieu why Richelieu had let Treville into his bed. _Is it only that you have no other choices?_ Treville had asked. _In our positions discreet men, men with nothing to gain by revealing the secret, are hard to find._

 _You are not the first such man I have found,_ Richelieu had replied, in that fumbling roundabout way which is the only way he had ever learned to speak of love. _You will be the last._

That answer had never quite satisfied Treville. Richelieu’s inability to speak his heart aloud in a way that his more forthright, honest lover can understand had hurt them both many times in those early years. Later they had seemed to strike a balance. Later Treville seems to learn that _you will be the last_ had been a declaration of love and fidelity. Later Richelieu convinces himself that the doubt he sees sometimes in Treville’s expressive face is only a phantom, or relates to something else, and regardless does not hurt.

Seeing it again now hurts.

“Because I cannot,” Richelieu replies. It is the best answer he can make. It is not enough.

“You mean you will not,” Treville says heavily.

“Jean – ”

Richelieu is a man skilled with words, and his lover wants nothing more than to be convinced; perhaps, if he had been allowed to speak, Richelieu might have carried the day, and the rest of our story would have been rendered unnecessary. But in one of those twists so loved by dramatists and poets alike, a knock came upon the door at just that moment, and the moment, accordingly, was lost.

“Your Eminence,” says the voice of another of Richelieu’s Red Guards, this one a Gascon named Cahusac: “there is a Musketeer here for the Captain.” There is a moment’s pause, then Cahusac adds: “It is M. Athos.”

“I will see what he wants,” Treville says, moving past Richelieu towards the door.

Richelieu, to do him credit, attempts to catch at Treville’s sleeve – even says, with considerably less calm than is his wont, “Wait!” – but it is for naught. The Captain departs, and the Cardinal is left to question where and how his well-laid plans have gone awry.

* * *

There is one good thing that comes immediately of this disastrous interview between the Cardinal and his lover. That is, that when Richelieu emerges again and is met with fresh murmurs of sympathy from the members of Louis’ court, Richelieu is in a temperament to appreciate them. True, they are condoling him for the loss of his mother and not the loss of his lover, but that matters little: a politician is long experienced in keeping the sentiment and discarding the precise wording of anything said to them. Richelieu therefore accepts the platitudes of others with rather more genuine gratitude than he had been able to muster up before. This does not go unnoticed, and the word is soon spreading throughout the court that Richelieu had been closer to his mother than anyone had supposed – _see how troubled he is, how grateful for any word of solicitude!_

Richelieu, hearing this, laughs to himself. But after laughing he sighs.

Still, having gained his point and paid the price, Richelieu has little choice but to proceed onwards. And as humans are wont to do, he begins to tell himself that it is all for the best. Treville cannot really prefer to spend Christmas shut up in an ancestral mansion in the countryside, at least not any countryside north of Bordeaux, and certainly not in the company of courtiers. Treville has visited the Richelieu estates before – they have arranged seemingly separate absences from court, and gone up there for a week or two, to enjoy for a time the freedom from the public eye – but that is quite a different thing from the melancholy sort of house-party Richelieu is designing this time. At Christmas, no less! Richelieu is quite aware that the Musketeers have a number of regimental traditions around Christmas. The King gives them each a purse and sends the garrison a dozen hampers of wine. They eat and drink and brawl with each other until that loses its spice, and then go out into the streets to brawl with the Red Guards instead. Richelieu’s Guards are always out keeping order – it’s that which allows the Musketeers their night off, though the ruffians are never grateful for it – and always the order they end up keeping is less among the populace itself than among the King’s nominal protectors. The next day half the garrison will be laid up with sprained ankles or blood loss, and the other half will be heaving their guts out from too much wine or pork or both. Treville will present himself at court looking like a ghost, and Richelieu will smirk.

The Musketeers are not the only ones with traditions. Richelieu and Treville have some of their own. Later, after Three Kings’ Day has come and gone and Richelieu may once again attend to his own private matters, Richelieu will set out two bottles of wine and wait for his Captain to visit. When the wine is drunk and many other things have been said, Richelieu will make a joke about Musketeers, and wine, and the moral ascendancy he’s been making public hay of for the past thirteen days. And Treville will smile sleepily, and lay his head against Richelieu’s shoulder, and whisper, _Merry Christmas._

Richelieu thinks of these things, and assures himself that Treville will really be much happier in Paris for Christmas than in Indre-et-Loire. And so when he rides out at the head of his train the next morning, cosmetics carefully applied to hide the effects of a sleepless night, he does not look back to see the figure stoically watching from the battlements.


	2. Chapter 2

The journey to Indre-et-Loire is not particularly long, in the usual way of things, though of course the larger one’s train the longer it gets, and Cardinal Richelieu’s train is long indeed. Still, by leaving early and riding late, the Cardinal manages to arrive at the Richelieu estates after only one night spent on the road. The Cardinal dislikes spending nights on the road. In the first place, it is difficult to maintain dignity of station in a common inn; those delineations which matter so much in the usual course of things are in such a place almost entirely elided. And in the second place, the Cardinal, who is well known to be finicky as a cat, is never quite sure that anything he touches is clean.

As a statesman, of course the Cardinal must travel, and put up with all the inconveniences attendant thereto. For the journey between Paris and Indre-et-Loire his Eminence is somewhat better off. Having realized early on that he would be making this particular journey somewhat more often than any other, he had caused a small convent to be built that could accommodate himself and his household on any such journey. Others have exclaimed, at times, at the miraculous chance that had led Richelieu to discover a new holy site at almost exactly the halfway point of this homeward journey. To such statements the Cardinal has been known to shrug and preach at length about the mysterious ways of the Lord.

Several of the invited guests had wished to ride in the Cardinal’s train, but Richelieu had contrived to put them all off by a day. This, he says, will allow him to make sure the Duchy is ready to receive visitors. Susanne had always insisted on good housekeeping. This excuse had been widely accepted, and several flattering things had been said about the devotion of the son to his mother’s wishes.

The truth is naturally more complex. Armand fully expects, upon arriving at the estates, to discover that, even after its mistress’ illness and death, the house is still in good order. That is not the true purpose of having put off the courtiers, though it is true that the extra day will him add the many finishing touches that will take it from merely ‘good’ to excellent. His true motive is this: the day’s delay will afford Richelieu necessary time – when coupled with the two spent on the road – to allow Richelieu to contain his emotions.

His interview with his lover had terminated so abruptly that Richelieu lacks certain vital insights necessary to facilitate further reasoning. He finds, on the journey to Indre-et-Loire, that for the first time in their acquaintance he cannot predict how Treville is reacting or feeling. This troubles Richelieu exceedingly, and the great mind spends much of the journey turning upon itself, considering and reevaluating the small amount of information he _does_ have, to very little effect.

His arrival at the Richelieu estates ought therefore to have been a relief, promising an end to enforced idleness and the commencement of occupation – the very occupation which, in the quest to preserve its nature, Richelieu had caused his lover pain. It may therefore seem odd that their arrival had the contradictory effect, though to any student of human nature the reason is explicable: as a people we are more inclined to want then to have. What is had soon loses its luster, while what is unattained and perhaps unattainable attains a luminescence far outweighing its nominal value.

Consequently, the Richelieu manor-gates opening before the Cardinal seem not like arms parting to embrace the prodigal son, but rather like the jaws opening to swallow him whole. The well-manicured approach with its neatly groomed trees evoke prison bars instead of reprieve. And the manor itself had never seemed as gloomy to the Cardinal in all his long drab childhood or adolescence as it does on this day.

The carriage draws up in front of the house; the housekeeper, as well as several other senior servants, have come out to meet it. Richelieu disembarks with his customary grace and manages to summon up a benevolent smile to bestow upon them all.

“Welcome, your Eminence,” the housekeeper says loudly. There’s a quieter, less distinct murmur as the other servants present echo her. All present bow or curtsey.

Richelieu inclines his head. “Mme. Renaud, it is good to see you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mme. Renaud is the picture of correctness, a testament to Susanne’s enduring legacy. “And may I be so bold, sir, on behalf of the staff as well as myself, to offer you our deepest condolences on the death of Lady Richelieu.”

“Thank you,” Richelieu echoes. He modulates the benevolence in his smile to also evoke measured grief. “And I must thank you for the assistance you all rendered to my mother in her final days. I regret that I was not here myself. Her death has been such a shock.”

“A shock to us all, sir,” Mme. Renaud agrees.

There is a pause here. Mme. Renaud cannot, in all propriety, ask Richelieu the questions to which she must desperately wish to know the answers. It is Richelieu’s duty as the lord here to anticipate and answer them regardless.

Accordingly, he says, “I am expecting a small party down from Paris tomorrow; half-a-dozen nobles, and their servants. My sisters will be among them, of course. And then Alfonse must be already here?”

“He is indeed, my lord. He charged me to tell you that he is at prayer now, but will meet you at supper.”

Armand glances at the sky; supper is no more than an hour hence. “Then I will freshen up and plan to join him there. This evening I will be available to discuss all the many details that need attending to.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Mme. Renaud curtsies again. Richelieu takes this as his cue to enter his ancestral home, Jussac at his heels.

Richelieu doesn’t pause in the main hall; he turns right, then left, then goes up the stairs, his feet following a familiar well-worn path. His chambers, naturally, have not moved. Stone and mortar are not known for their transience. For that one must look to human beings.

It is on such thoughts that Richelieu’s mind runs as he finds himself once again in the suite of rooms that had been his since before his memory begins. The bedroom is behind another door, but Richelieu knows well what it contains, the small bed and smaller necessary furniture that had been his portion. The Richelieu family had not had great wealth in Armand’s childhood. That had been part of what had driven Susanne to instill in her children the relentless drive for success.

Now Richelieu has wealth. His bed in the Palais-Cardinal is thrice the size of the one behind that ordinary door. This one could have been made larger, if Armand had wished. Most of the other furnishings in this house have been replaced, as the family’s star has risen. The Richelieu family has enough wealth now for twelve manor-houses. Susanne had wanted to replace those in Armand’s childhood rooms, too.

Armand had refused. No one sees these rooms: no one will ever know the state of its furnishings. And Armand values the reminder. This is whence he had come, and this is where he may return, if he is not careful. This is where his family line may return.

Susanne had given Armand the tools to shape his own legacy. Armand cannot – _must_ not – neglect that. Not even for Jean.

Armand moves to down the small bag he’s been carrying. Most of the luggage is handled by servants, of course, but this bag contains items that cannot be entrusted to anyone but Armand himself. Seals. Signatures. Secrets. Even here, Armand moves to lock them up, trusting his mother’s servants no farther than he’d trust any other stranger.

Fortunately the desk contains locking drawers. (I will add here, for the reader’s benefit, that Armand had not been the one to install them. Susanne had encouraged all of her children to put her lessons into practice young, and like any good teacher, had supplied them all with the means to do so.) Armand sits down in the familiar seat and begins the familiar routine of sorting and storing his secrets.

At this desk Armand had written his youthful essays and read his tutor’s books, learning Latin, Greek, English. In this chair he had taken his first lessons in philosophy and history. Standing a few steps away, in the center of the small braided rug, he had recited poetry and demonstrated elocution. All of it in preparation for the day when he would arrive here, the Lord Richelieu complete, Duc, Cardinal and First Minister all at once. Just as Susanne had always wanted.

Richelieu knows well that Susanne would never have approved of his feelings for Treville. He knows, too, that it would not be out of foolish prejudice. Their relationship may violate the laws of God and man; but what of that? So do murder, and bribery, and a dozen other things which both Richelieus had engaged in daily, either directly or through the authorized behavior of their spies and subordinates. Armand had learned to discard such laws at his mother’s knee. And though the human heart has in it an infinite capacity for hypocrisy, in this case it had been not hypocrisy but practicality that would have triggered Susanne’s disapproval. For the plain truth of the matter is, that underneath the many armored layers of Richelieu’s epidermis, lies a heart that is not shriveled entirely. This heart, and the Musketeer who holds it, form a vulnerability of which Richelieu’s mother would never have permitted, had she been aware of it.

“Armand?”

Jussac’s voice breaks the spell of memory into which Richelieu had fallen. Richelieu carefully conceals the start which he wishes to give, and merely looks up instead, someone who has been drawn from a long reverie which will charitably be attributed to grief.

“The maid is here with the wash-water,” Jussac says gently.

“Let her come in.” Richelieu puts the last letter away and turns the key in the lock, tucking it away safely in his robes afterwards.

The maid who enters is not someone Richelieu recognizes; she is new, then, for he makes it his business to know everyone in his employ, or his family’s. This is not to be interpreted as any relaxation of the general cold-heartedness which the Cardinal cultivates so diligently. It is only that the value of two-way loyalty may be reliably measured, and so Armand has learned to appreciate and value it.

The next half hour is entirely taken up with the minutiae of settling into a new domestic establishment, however short-lived Armand’s stay may prove. The maid is followed shortly thereafter by Armand’s own servants, who transform his chambers rapidly into a respectable facsimile of the Palais-Cardinal. There’s nothing to be done about the bed or the relatively small size of any of the other furnishings, but all his robes are in the wardrobe, his toiletries laid out by the wash-basin, his jewels laid on the vanity. Armand’s valet is next, and the business of preparing for a family supper consumes the rest of the time until Armand is to go down and meet Alfonse.

“Do you want me to attend?” Jussac inquires.

Richelieu considers, but ultimately shakes his head. “I don’t need protection from Alfonse, and you’ll have a better time with the other Guards. Only one of us needs to listen to the details of the Second Council of Nicaea.”

Jussac smiles briefly. “Didn’t you just say you _didn’t_ need protection?”

“Alas, our blood relationship compels my attention.” That, and Alfonse has been known to slip important information in between the minutiae. It’s an effective approach, especially when one may be observed – for example, when one is dining in a strange house, waited on by strange servants. The untrained ear tunes out the irrelevant details, and fails to realize that a name or an event mentioned does not properly correspond to the proceedings of eight-century Byzantium.

“Shall I return later, or…?”

“No.” Richelieu sighs. “No, consider yourself free of the evening. I must speak with Mme. Renaud after dinner, and then I will retire. It will be a long day tomorrow.”

“Indeed.” Jussac bows slightly. “Good evening, then, your Eminence.”

“Good evening, Jussac.”

* * *

To dignify the repast that occurred in the Richelieu household that evening as a ‘family supper’ does not do as grave a disservice to the term as one might suppose. It is true that family had never been a term that had had meaning to Susanne: her household had been run accordingly, and I have already named the ways in which the siblings had been estranged from each other, the relatively low value they were taught to place on each others’ company or good opinion. All that being said, Alfonse is the sibling Armand values the most; and, moreover, they pursue similar paths through life, for Alfonse is a well-respected theologian, and Armand is a Cardinal. Added to that is the fact of Alfonse’s previous kindness to the young Armand. Therefore their meeting again, after some five or six years of having communicated only by letter, brings with it enough fellow-feeling to produce smiles on each of their faces, and a warm handshake, which is the closest any member of this family would ever approach to physical intimacy outside the marriage-bed (or its out-of-wedlock equivalent).

Their conversation proceeds along predictable lines. The events of the world are mentioned only briefly, and always with reference to the pain of sin and death which lays in wait for most of the principals named in the gossip the brothers exchange. After that the topic turns to theological matters. Armand talks with a good will about the Protestant fallacies, and learns quite as much from Alfonse on the state of the power struggle currently subsisting between the two denominations as he does on the flaws in Protestant dogma.

Afterwards Armand feels a curious ennui. Mme. Renaud finds him for the promised household meeting, and they attend to the many details entailed by hosting so large a party with the energy and efficiency that is the trademark of a trusted servant, to say nothing of his celebrated Eminence. And yet Armand still finds himself looking over his shoulder, or to the nonexistent seat that is not at his side. For whom does he look? Whose presence does he expect? Ah, who can say?

After Armand takes his leave of Mme. Renaud and retires for the night, the feeling intensifies. He feels himself bereft; inexplicably, since this is hardly the first night he has spent alone. Quite the contrary. Richelieu is widely said to be a solitary man, and though we know that this is not quite true – that there are certain individuals whose company he actively courts – the majority of his evenings indeed are spent alone, and his Eminence feels no lack.

Ah, but his Eminence usually has many things to occupy his time, and is not left to the tender mercies of a mind unsettled. Solitude is usually congenial to him; common as it is by night, it is rare for a man of his prominence by day, and so he rarely finds it wearying. Too, he is usually surrounded by all of his carefully cultivated comforts, his books and his music and his art. When one adds to that the company of his Red Guards – the officers of which, as exemplified by Jussac, Richelieu counts as brothers – it will therefore be easily understood that Richelieu rarely finds himself missing the presence of another human being.

Tonight he does.

Briefly Armand considers seeking out Alfonse. His brother’s company would not be his first choice (I say this without prejudice, for the reverse is quite as true, and neither brother feels this to be a lack) but still it would _be_ company. He dismisses the notion, though, recalling with a sigh the family supper and its interminable monologues. No; Armand has already gotten what comfort he may out of his sibling. Jussac is Armand’s next thought. It would have been his first, except that Armand had already told Jussac he might have the night to himself, and Armand exerts himself to honor those promises. Now Armand reconsiders it; then he puts that, too, aside. He will be making many demands on Jussac’s time and attention over the next few days. Jussac is the only officer Richelieu has brought with him, and therefore, by the same token, the only ally. The other officers Richelieu had entrusted with various commissions to cover his absence. They remain, therefore, in Paris: and while a Red Guard is stationed outside Richelieu’s door, as is customary, - and while Richelieu knows the young boy’s name and life story, in the same way he learns and knows the same of all the servants in the Richelieu family’s employ – the boy is a stranger.

He can certainly not be considered company. And it is company Armand lacks. The house, which in Armand’s memories is full to bursting – two adults, five children and a full complement of servants will produce that effect – seems now too empty.

(In fact, if all present were assembled and a headcount were taken, Armand would find that they are not so very unpopulated as all of that. In addition to the full complement of servants at the manor, there are the not inconsiderable number Armand has brought with him, to say nothing of his Red Guards, who more than outweigh the absence of three children and two parents. Numbers are however a poor way to judge impact. To Armand, a servant does not make up for the absence of his mother, nor Alfonse for the absence of his other siblings, nor the boy outside for Jussac or Bernajoux or Boisrenard or Cahusac. The house is full; Richelieu is alone.)

Memory whispers in Armand’s ear. _You’ll do better to have me there, won’t you? Then you need not be alone._

“Humbug,” Richelieu says firmly aloud, and goes to bed.

* * *

A few moments after the clock has struck two – so few that the echo of the sonorous _dong_ still rings in his ears – Richelieu wakes with a start, and immediately calls out, “Who’s there?”

There is no response. Richelieu frowns, and lights the candle.

He had been awoken by a very loud sound – a thump, or perhaps a crash – which had been so loud and so near that it must (or so he had thought) have taken place in the very room in which he sleeps. This had led to his calling out. He is therefore extremely surprised to discover, upon lighting the candle, that the room is empty.

Richelieu finds this odd, but, putting it down to the tail-end of a dream – though why he should have dreamt about thumps and crashes is beyond him – goes to put the candle out again.

He is stopped – stopped right at the moment of doing so; stopped with his fingers a bare inch above pinching out the flame (Susanne, it goes without saying, had not approved of the expense of candle-snuffers) – when he hears the noise again.

Convinced now that there is something there, Richelieu gets out of bed immediately. He pauses to catch up his dressing-gown and put it around himself, for the room is cold. Then he goes out into the main room.

“Good evening, my son,” Susanne says gently. “Sit down and bide with me a while.”

“I am dreaming,” Richelieu says in reply, regarding the figure of his mother, seated comfortably in the one good chair his chambers afford. “I – good Lord, what kind of housekeeping is Mme. Renaud keeping these days? I had not thought the food was spoilt, but – ”

“I speak to you through the grave, not the gravy,” Susanne returns. “Sit down, Armand.” Again she points to the desk-chair.

“You are dead,” Armand says.

“Yes.”

“I am dreaming.”

“Are you?”

“I must be.”

“Even in a dream, there’s no need to stand.” A third time Susanne indicates the desk-chair.

“I would rather wake up.” And stubbornly Armand remains standing.

“Do you wish to see me so little, then, that you’d end a dream I am in?” Susanne sighs. “No, don’t answer that; I know it is true, and I will not give you the pain of saying it.”

“Nor yourself the pain of hearing it.”

“So quick-witted. I gave you that, at least.”

“Nature gave me that,” Armand snapped, unwilling, even in a dream, to give his late mother the credit of that of which he is so proud.

“Armand, you are not dreaming. I am come to give you a warning.”

“A warning?” Chill slides down Armand’s spine, for a reason he cannot very well explain.

“My soul is not at peace – ”

“Imagine my surprise,” Armand says coldly.

Susanne does not flinch, nor does her expression change. “My soul is not at peace: very well, I can bear that; the fault has been my own, these many years. But you – I would not have my faults reflect on you.”

“I suppose you will next be troubling my siblings’ dreams,” Armand says, having greater recourse to bitterness and anger, the better to cover his dawning fear – not fear of his mother, but rather, the fear that she might be speaking the truth: that this might be no dream. That he might be speaking to the unquiet shade of his mother, who has died, but who has not yet had Christian burial. She sits in the chair as she had been wont to sit, attired as she had been wont to do in life, and when she shakes her head the motion has no hint of the uncanny to it. Except for Alfonse’s missive, Armand would have sworn that his mother sits before him, alive and well.

Ah, but there is one difference. The light is poor – it comes entirely from the candle in Armand’s hand, and a little, a very little, from the banked embers in the small fireplace – but even so Armand can tell that his mother’s skin has no blush of health. It is as waxen as the candle Armand holds in his hand. More waxen indeed than any candle Susanne would ever have countenanced: Armand has brought his own, because he values clear even light more than he values money.

Now Susanne says, “Your siblings have less need of me than do you.”

This pricks, and before Armand can think better of it, he cries out: “Of course! I might have known it. It was ever I; wasn’t it, mother? I was to be the great one, I was to carry the family name. My sisters you would never value, my brothers you drove away. I was the one who did not, _could_ not escape; I was the one therefore that you loved.”

The vitriol with which Armand pronounces the word _loved_ would have turned any mortal man white with fear. Susanne, who is already white, though in her case from the grave, merely shakes her head.

“I know it,” she replies.

“From whence comes this wisdom, mother? You lacked it when you lived.”

“I lacked many things when I lived, but having died, and having learned my fate, I have learned many other things likewise.”

“Are you damned, then?” For all his vitriol, the word still sticks in Armand’s throat. Despite it all, he had loved his mother. Furiously, bitterly, angrily, and in spite of all of his attempts to stop, he had loved his mother. The love of a child for the person who had created and nourished them is difficult to kill, however much it resembles the love of a butterfly for the hand that pins it, wings trembling, to the board, and watches it curiously as it writhes.

“Yes, I am damned,” Susanne says.

“I will pray for you,” Armand says.

“You had better save your prayers for yourself. My son, you are in a fair way to becoming damned yourself.”

“I?” Armand laughs; it is not mirthful. “You forget I am a Cardinal.”

“I do not forget it. It is you who forget it.”

Armand stills now. “Careful, mother,” he says softly. “Of what do you speak?” And he thinks of Jean.

(Perhaps, in all righteousness, his thoughts should have turned to his mortal sins. The commandments say _thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt honor thy father and mother_ ; and Armand has broken all of those. But it is not to those sins that his mind turns. For those sins he has confessed; for those sins he feels remorse. For those sins he knows guilt. There is another sin for which those things cannot be said. There is a sin he feels no guilt or remorse for; a sin he hopes to repeat again, and often, before he dies. There is one sin he holds close to his heart, where it is sheltered, and fed, and encouraged to thrive.)

“It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad,” Susanne says sternly. “We are not meant to be solitary creatures, Armand. We are meant to share ourselves.”

“Fine words coming from you,” Armand cries. “You have never shared anything in your life!”

“And I am damned for it! If the spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. I will wander the Earth, unknown and unknowable, until – ”

“Until?” Armand whispers.

Susanne shrugs. “I know not,” she replies. “The doctrine says that Purgatory ends; but though I have not met the Devil, I begin to believe that this may be Hell.”

“I have done many great works,” Armand protests. “I have endowed orphanages, convents, charities. I have patronized the arts. Supported the King, strengthened France’s borders – ”

“Think you that works alone are what lead a man to Heaven?”

“I have had faith,” Armand goes on. “I have tended my flock, I have proclaimed the word of God, I have preached the Gospels – ”

“You have preached them, but you have not heard them! Think you that faith alone are what lead a man to Heaven?”

“Surely one or both do,” Armand falters.

“And I thought the same,” Susanne says, inexorable where her son begins to doubt. “Fool that I was! I judged myself by those around me, and measured my success against the yardstick of the world. How many times have you preached the Last Supper, Armand? How many times have you heard the words of Christ, that the only commandment is to love one another?”

“I love,” Armand says, low and terrible.

“Do you?” Susanne says, equally low. “Where is your beloved, Armand?”

Armand does not answer.

“When called upon to choose between love and power, what did you say?” Susanne presses.

Still Armand does not answer.

“And so I am here.” Susanne shakes her head. Now the movement is wrong, somehow blurred, and for the first time Armand sees that Susanne is becoming translucent. Her form, at first so solid-seeming, has begun to fade. Between one breath and the next Armand sees a light _through_ Susanne, which, he realizes a moment later, is the embers in the fire-place.

“Wait,” Armand cries. “How can you say such things to me and then go?”

“Because it is not my place to absolve you,” Susanne says. Her voice now begins to grow faint likewise. “That is in your lover’s hands; but you are not yet worthy of it.”

“How am I to become worthy of it?” Doubt closes in on Armand from all sides; doubt leavened with anger. Susanne’s words, that her mistakes are reflected back on her son, come back to him and echo damningly in his ears. “I am what you made me, what you always wanted me to be! What right have you to come to me now, and say I must begin anew?”

“I may say nothing. I may only point the way. Others will come. I do not leave you alone, my son. You will be guided.”

“How? By whom?”

“Call them angels, if you like; it is not the same, but it is close, and will do well enough for mortal mind. Three of them you will meet, and if you listen to them, you may yet escape my fate.”

“But – ” Armand begins, baffled and bewildered.

“My son, my son,” Susanne says, voice and body nearly gone. “Know that I wish you the best when I say that I hope never to see you again ere trumpet sound.”

(I print the last word, _sound_ , here for the edification of the reader. Armand hears it not, for after pronouncing the word _trumpet_ in so faint a tone as to have been nearly inaudible, Susanne is gone.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone's enjoying the fic so far! This is the last chapter I'll have a chance to write/post before Christmas goes into full swing. I'll be back on January 8. A heartfelt felicitation to all in whatever style you like best, and I'll see you after Three Kings' Day!
> 
> (Psst: comments are authors' favorite presents. Pass it on!)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year to everyone! I hope everyone had a great end of 2015 and their 2016 is going well so far. I'm looking forward to diving back into writing :)
> 
> Before the chapter, a moment of your time, if I may.
> 
> For 2016, I made a resolution to stop being afraid of my writing. That may sound odd, but I spend a lot of time hiding or covering up the fact that I write fanfiction. Online, it's easy to be proud of what I do, but in the real world, even with those I know would never judge me, I avoid or outright refuse to acknowledge what I'm doing with my time and my creativity. I know that's not healthy, and I'm trying to end it.
> 
> To that end, one of the things I've done to help drown out the quiet voice in my head - the one that says that what I'm doing has no redeeming value and should be treated as a shameful secret - is to set up [a Patreon site.](https://www.patreon.com/kyele?alert=2&ty=h)
> 
> Why? That's something of a story, and I talk about it [on my blog](http://timeforalongstory.tumblr.com/post/136836406165/announcement), as well as on [the Patreon itself](https://www.patreon.com/kyele?alert=2&ty=h). Long story short: I'm going to come out of the shameful fanfic writer's closet. And I'm hoping some of you will want to come on that journey with me.
> 
> The most important thing to say is that **my fics are free**. All the old fics will remain free and all the new fics will continue to be free. If you can't, won't or don't become my patron, that's fine. You'll continue to get the same from me that you've always gotten. That's a promise.
> 
> As for the rest, if you are so moved, please check it out. Otherwise - or having done so - on with the fic.

There is a flash of light, as bright as if Richelieu had looked into the sun, which leaves Richelieu blinking for several moments after the apparition of his mother disappears. When he finally regains the use of his eyes, he stares about himself at the normalcy he beholds, and questions whether or not all that had just passed might have been a dream.

Armand would never have put himself down as sentimental; it is indeed the lack of sentiment that is causing the current trouble in his life. And yet the reader will readily comprehend how much easier it is for this man to believe that, in his grief, Richelieu might have dreamed of his mother, than to believe that his mother had actually appeared to him, and given him warning of the damnation to follow if Richelieu does not open his heart and his life to love.

Susanne! Tell Armand to open himself to love! The idea is laughable; and indeed, for a brief moment, Armand does laugh. He laughs to convince himself that it had only been a dream. But the laughter is thin in the air, and falls apart quickly – as indeed, equally quickly, falls apart his belief in the irrelevance of what he has just beheld.

“It is astonishing!” Richelieu says to himself, speaking out loud, as if by doing so he can regain or retain that grasp on reality which he feels slipping away moment by moment.

“What is, your Eminence?” another voice asks.

Richelieu turns, and sees, by the door, one of his Red Guards standing there. “Cahusac!” Richelieu says in some surprise. (The reader will recall M. Cahusac from the first chapter.) “When did you come in?”

“Just a moment ago,” Cahusac answers. “Right before you spoke.”

“I did not hear you come in.”

“You would not have,” Cahusac replies.

“I was very distracted,” Richelieu concedes. “But I – you will laugh, but I – ” Here Richelieu pauses, and hesitates a moment. Reserved by birth, by nurture and by habit, Richelieu rarely shares his thoughts and feelings with others – indeed, to his sometimes detriment, as his most recent interview with his lover had proven. Richelieu trusts his most senior Guards, but all the same, he does not usually confide in them.

Something is different tonight, though. Something has changed in the air. Richelieu can feel it; and we shall be charitable, and say that that is why he opens his mouth again, and confides thusly:

“I am either beginning to go mad, or I have been blessed with a vision from the Lord – for I am standing here in this room, and in that chair, moments ago, I would have sworn I saw my mother!” Richelieu shakes his head. “And so either I have dreamt the whole thing, and sleepwalked here, or it was real – _she_ was real – and what she said to me – ” Here Richelieu pauses again, and his courage runs out, for at length he finishes, “ – you would not believe what she said to me.”

“As to that, I would believe it quite readily,” Cahusac replies, “for I know what it was.”

“What! You know what it was?” Richelieu’s astonishment at these words is too great to be concealed, and he turns to his Guard, staring at him in that same astonishment. Then he gasps.

Cahusac, Richelieu has just recalled, had not come with him to Indre-et-Loire. He had been left behind in Paris.

“You have mistaken me for the true owner of this form, I see, and have not recognized me for who I truly am,” the other man says. “I am not your Guardsman, Cardinal Richelieu. I wear his face, as the others who will come after me – whom your mother foretold – will wear other faces. This familiarity is a concession to your mortal mind, which would shatter if it beheld our true visages. It serves another purpose: for the truth is difficult to hear, it is best spoken with the voice of love.”

“Again you speak to me of love,” Richelieu says faintly.

“’But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things’,” the other man quotes.

Richelieu, having no immediate rejoinder to this, falls silent for a moment: and in that moment studies his guest, whom he had taken, in the folly of the moment, for his Guard Cahusac. The man, or seeming-man, wears Cahusac’s face, it is true. But like Susanne’s it is too pale; the ruddy flush of the Guard is gone; only the pallor of the grave remains. Then, too, when Richelieu casts his eyes down, he sees that the apparition stands not on solid ground. He hovers above it. A thought strikes Richelieu, and he looks now at his own feet. They, too, hover.

“Your mortal shell is where you left it,” the apparition of Cahusac says. He gestures to the closed door behind which rests the bed from which Richelieu had risen only minutes before. “It slumbers, and in slumber will it be maintained. Meanwhile your soul will journey abroad with my brothers and I.”

“Journey?” Richelieu swallows. “Where shall we go?”

“In space, nowhere at all,” the apparition says. “Our journey will be in time.”

“Impossible!” Richelieu cries.

“Do you say so? What then do you call recollection?”

“Is it recollection we will journey through, then?” At this prospect, Richelieu takes heart, for there at least he believes himself to be on safe ground.

“I am the first to come; my realm is that which has been,” the apparition replies. “Next you will visit what is. Thirdly and finally, you will see what will be, if you do not turn aside from your current path.”

“The damnation my mother spoke of,” Richelieu whispers.

The apparition shrugs. “That is not for me to say,” he says carelessly.

“For whom is it to say?” But even as Richelieu pronounces these words, he remembers his mother’s statement: _It is not my place to absolve you. That is in your lover’s hands._

“Let us begin,” the spirit says.

Richelieu opens his mouth to speak, though he knows not what; he is forestalled, regardless, by the blurring of the world around him.

* * *

When the blurring has ceased, Richelieu blinks several times, to resettle his vision. Then he frowns.

“Spirit,” he says tentatively, “are you _quite_ certain I am not suffering from indigestion?”

“An offensive question, were I inclined to take offense,” the spirit replies. “What prompts you to ask it?”

Richelieu gestures to his surroundings. “We have not moved,” he says simply. They still stand in the antechamber of Richelieu’s childhood rooms. Desk, chair, rug and shutters are all as they had been. Aside from the momentary blurring, nothing has changed.

“I told you we would not move in space,” the spirit replies.

“No; but we have not moved in time, either.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Nothing has changed.”

“And was it not your word, oh great Cardinal, that nothing _should_ be changed? That these rooms should be preserved exactly as they had been? Come,” the spirit adds, when Richelieu would reply: “trust not the evidence of your eyes, which will betray you, but look and listen with your heart: do you truly apprehend no differences?”

Richelieu looks around him again. This time, prompted by the spirit’s chastisement, he does begin to observe small changes. The chair is a different one, though similar; it had broken sometime in the summer of ’96 and been replaced with the one from his eldest sister’s rooms, who had recently vacated them on the occasion of her marriage. The woven rug on the floor is somewhat brighter, absent the decades of washing that are to come. The small desk is rather more covered in theological books than in papers. The Armand who sits there is more concerned with his ecclesiastical studies than with the business of statecraft.

The shutters are ill-painted. In the present day they are neatly done. There is enough money now for care to be taken even in the places where no one but the family will see. But in Armand’s childhood that had not been so. The aura of wealth and power, having to be maintained in the absence of its actuality, had dictated Susanne’s focus. The shutters at the front of the house will be well-painted, if Armand goes to look. But back here, where no one will know, the paint is dented and chipped and tinted greyer than white.

Armand begins to speak, to reply to the spirit’s challenge in the affirmative, when he pauses. Another sound has reached his ears. High-pitched, immature, unfamiliar – childish laughter.

“What is that?” Armand asks aloud, more in perplexity than because he does not actually recognize laughter when he hears it.

“Come stand by this wall here,” the spirit says, rather than answering Armand directly.

“Why?” Armand asks this question, even as he obeys. He is curious, the Cardinal, not a fool.

Or perhaps he is. This spirit wears Cahusac’s face, and Armand has survived too many assassination attempts not to have learned not to obey his personal guard instantly when they take a particular tone. There are many Red Guards to whom Armand does not extend that level of trust, but those are the Guards whose duties take them elsewhere. Those men who form the core of Armand’s personal Guards – Cahusac among them – have earned Armand’s trust, as Armand has hoped to earn their loyalty.

“And you have earned it, Cardinal,” the spirit says gently.

Armand controls himself ruthlessly, showing neither surprise nor fear. “Do you read my thoughts, now, spirit?”

“Not in the way you fear. Your secrets are safe, schemer. But you chose to open some portions of yourself in order to take this journey. Those portions I may see, as will those who come after me.”

“Chose? I chose nothing!”

“You do not know you did, but you did.”

“Enlighten me.” Armand does not snap; but, as the childish laughter begins to run again in his ears, coming closer, he wishes to.

“You could have stayed in your bed, and gone back to sleep, when you were first awoken,” the spirit – Cahusac – says. “You could have declared yourself to be in a dream, and rejected the words your mother gave you. You could have refused to accompany me – yes – ” (when Richelieu opens his mouth to protest) “ – that was in your power too. Every time you have chosen acceptance. Every time you have opened yourself a small piece more.”

“If I have chosen one way, it follows that I may choose another.”

“Yes; this is true. You may at any time turn aside. Reject the truths you have been shown, turn aside from the truths that yet lie before you. You may yet close your eyes and refuse to see. As to what will happen to you, if you choose closure – ”

“Yet to be open is to be unsafe,” Richelieu says, speaking what he knows, incontrovertibly, to be the truth.

“So you were taught,” Cahusac agrees. “Look! You will see some portion of that now.”

The laughter sounds again, even closer. A moment later the door to Richelieu’s rooms opens. Positioned against the far wall, next to the spirit wearing Cahusac’s face, Richelieu is in the perfect position to see the two boys who come tumbling through.

The two boys and the dog.

“Oh no,” Richelieu whispers.

“Do you remember this?” Cahusac asks.

Richelieu doesn’t answer. He’s too busy watching his younger self roll around on the braided rug with Alfonse and the puppy they’d had for a day.

“You found the dog in the gardens,” Cahusac says. “He’d been wild, probably starving; he was gnawing on a cabbage, a bad sign for an animal whose primary diet is meat. You, and your brother, fell in love with him instantly.”

“Yes, I remember,” Richelieu whispers.

“You decided to keep him. You named him – do you remember?”

“No.”

“The name was – ”

“I said I don’t remember,” Richelieu cuts the spirit off.

The two boys are laughing. The dog barks, a happy sound, and washes both of their faces.

“You fed the dog stew from the kitchens,” Cahusac says. “He loved you for that, as you loved him.”

“Yes,” Richelieu whispers.

A new sound reaches their ears. The boys on the rug, absorbed in their play, do not hear it. Richelieu does. Footsteps. An opening door.

“So it is true,” Susanne says from the door.

The two boys gasp. The dog, unaware of the significance of this event, attempts to wash Susanne’s face, as well. Alfonse grabs him and wrestles him back.

“Cook told me that you had asked for your stew early,” Susanne goes on. “One of the serving-maids heard the animal. Of course, I said it could not be true. My children know better, I said. But I came to make sure anyway.”

Neither of the children speak. Even the dog, beginning to sense the atmosphere at last, forbears to bark.

“I am so disappointed in you,” Susanne says, with a quiet that cuts.

“It’s just a dog!” the young Armand bursts out. “We were just playing with it!”

“You are doing more than that,” Susanne says repressively. “You have fed it.”

“It was hungry!”

“There are many hungry creatures in the world. You cannot feed them all.”

“But – ”

“Silence,” Susanne says. She does not shout; she does not raise her voice. Her sons fall silent nevertheless.

“I am disappointed,” she repeats. “I thought I had taught you better than this.”

“Mama, we were just playing,” Alfonse tries.

“We have so little, but you give it away to a creature that has never done a thing in the world to deserve it.”

“He plays with us,” Armand says. “He loves us!”

Susanne shakes her head. “That is worse.”

“Mama – ”

“When you show affection in this way, carelessly, it makes you a target. It makes you vulnerable. You are children; you do not yet have enemies. But your family has enemies. There are those out there who will hate you for your success. They will seek to hurt you for it. The world is full of such.”

“But we will be above them,” the young Armand protests.

Watching from the wall, Cahusac asks Richelieu, “Another of your mother’s teachings?”

Richelieu makes a sign in the affirmative, not trusting himself to speak.

“You will be above them,” Susanne agrees. “But those you love – where will they be?” She indicates the dog. “Where will this dog be?”

The boys do not speak.

“I will tell you, then,” Susanne says. “The dog will be found one morning, on your doorstep, with its guts spread over the front of your house.”

Alfonse shivers. Armand is still.

“And then there is the cost.” Susanne regards her sons with disappointment. “Every creature in your household requires expenditures for its upkeep. A dog must eat, you know. Where is the money for that to come from?”

“It wouldn’t be much money,” Armand says faintly.

Cahusac observes, aside to the elder Richelieu, “You don’t sound as if you’d believed that.”

“I believed it,” Richelieu replies heavily. “I simply did not believe that it would make a difference.”

“How much do you think it would be? No – wait.” Susanne interrupts herself, rising to her feet and beckoning her sons to follow her. “Come with me.”

The two boys follow. Silent, immaterial, Richelieu and the spirit who wears Cahusac’s face do the same. The dog is led behind them all, forlorn.

“Do you recall where we are going?” Cahusac asks. His voice is quiet, perhaps in deference to the silence the living three maintain as they walk through the halls.

“My mother’s chamber,” Richelieu says.

The words must act as a talisman: the world blurs around them briefly, and when it clears, they are in Susanne’s chambers, the intervening time and distance whisked away.

Susanne is seated at her own desk, a somewhat larger one than that in Armand’s rooms, though no less old. Spread open on it is a ledger. In neat columns, figures march down the page.

“Look,” Susanne invites. “I have taught you how to read this ledger, Alfonse, Armand. What does it tell you?”

The boys look.

“What does it tell them?” Cahusac inquires, when neither of the boys speaks or moves.

“That there is no money,” Armand replies.

“What would you sacrifice, to keep this pet?” Susanne asks. “Alfonse? Should I go tell your sister that she must cease her piano lessons? It will impact her ability to marry well, but that is of no consequence to you, perhaps. Perhaps you think it fitting that she should live the rest of her life in poverty, so long as you have a pet.”

“No, Mama,” Alfonse says.

“Armand, what have you to say? What expense do you think is unnecessary? Should I withdraw your brother from seminary? Alfonse wants the dog, too, does he not? Perhaps he will like to live here, with no prospects, as long as he has a pet.”

“No, Mama,” Armand whispers.

“Do you see now?” Susanne leaves the ledger where it is, taking each of her son’s hands and looking intently at them. “I do not deny you because it brings me joy, my children. I do it because I know what is truly important.”

“Yes, Mama,” the two boys say together.

“Tell me what is important, my sons. Tell me what you have learned.”

“We cannot afford a pet,” Alfonse says.

“We cannot afford anything,” Armand says, somewhat more stubbornly.

“Your resources are limited,” Susanne says. “They will always be limited. Please God, if you study hard and listen well, you will one day have more than we do now. But even so you must not be profligate. You must protect what you have, and keep yourself well protected on all sides.”

“Yes, Mama,” the two boys repeat.

“You forgot that. Do you know why?”

The boys shake their heads. Watching, Richelieu begins to recall the old patterns of thought. The two boys do not signal, _no_ , because they truly do not have an answer to Susanne’s question. They shake their heads because they know it will better please Susanne to repeat it. Their mother’s good temper would not seem one to be courted, measured against the tempers of the world; but it is vastly to be preferred to her ill temper.

“You were blinded by emotion,” Susanne says.

“Yes, Mama,” the boys agree.

“You felt, perhaps, affection for this dog?”

“Yes, Mama.” (This more sorrowfully. The sorrow is well done, Richelieu thinks, and not entirely artificial.)

“That was your mistake, then. You allowed affection to enter your hearts; and look at what it led you to attempt! You take the food from your own mouths, you risk your chances of advancement and those of the rest of your family – for what? A fleeting emotion!”

“Yes, Mama.” (Even more sorrowfully.)

Susanne looks carefully at her two sons. “I believe you begin to understand,” she says at last.

The boys remain silent.

“Go,” Susanne orders. “Each to your own chamber, and you will not emerge again today. I will instruct the servants. The stew you fed to the dog was your supper. I hope your empty stomachs will instruct you a second time on the folly of giving away what is yours.”

Alfonse turns to go. His brother hangs back.

“What about the dog, Mama?” Armand asks tentatively.

Susanne’s eyebrows rise.

“You are less afraid than your brother,” Cahusac says, again as an aside to the elder Richelieu.

“No. I am _more_ afraid,” Richelieu replies. “It is only that, having always been so afraid, I have already begun to learn not to let it stop me.”

The two observers return their attention to Susanne as she speaks.

“I am sending the dog away,” she says. “Let this, too, be a lesson to you, Armand. When you cannot care for something, it is kinder to destroy it, than to let it suffer for your shortcomings.”

Armand looks angry. It lasts only for a moment. Then his face smooths out, and his brother takes his arm, tugging.

“Come on,” Alfonse whispers. Unspoken but obvious is his codicil: _don’t make it worse._

_Always looking out for me, Alfonse,_ Richelieu the elder thinks regretfully. And what had it gotten him? Susanne had realized it eventually. And the result of it has been that Armand is the Cardinal, the wealthy and powerful, while Alfonse is only a monk. Alfonse had done well enough not to be cast entirely aside, as Andreas had. But still to Armand had always gone the preference. Because Alfonse – no matter how hard Susanne had tried – Alfonse had never stopped caring for his little brother.

The two boys leave. Alone in the chamber, Susanne ties the dog’s lead to the desk. She rings for a servant, then closes her ledger.

The world blurs again. When it clears, Richelieu is not surprised to find himself and the spirit-Cahusac back in Armand’s boyhood rooms. Nor is Richelieu surprised to hear childish cries of anger, interspersed with impotent, furious sobs, coming from the closed door that leads to his younger self’s bedchamber.

The spirit regards Richelieu solemnly, but does not speak.

“She didn’t hurt the dog, you know,” Richelieu says. He doesn’t know why it’s important that Cahusac – the spirit – know that; but somehow it is. “I know she spoke as if – but she didn’t.”

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

“There is no need to convince.”

“No? Then what became of the canine?”

“She gave him to a family in the village.”

“A poor family?”

“I suppose.” Richelieu pauses, frowning. Of course they must have been poor. All the families in the village are more or less poor; it’s one of the reasons the Richelieus themselves are so relatively poor. A few thriving merchants, and the taxes they’d have paid to the manor, would have made all the difference.

“How then did they afford the dog?” Cahusac asks, seemingly idly.

This is the precise question that has begun to besiege Richelieu. Susanne’s arguments, so well-reasoned, must apply twice as much to the families in the village. How could they afford a dog, if the Richelieus could not?

Tentatively Richelieu says, “Perhaps – perhaps they cared less for – advancement. They might not have piano lessons for their daughters, or sent their sons to seminary. Perhaps that is how they could afford it.”

“Perhaps they valued a companion more than they valued worldly success,” Cahusac says.

“Yes.” Richelieu swallows, looks down. “Perhaps.”

“Or perhaps your mother gave the dog to a servant to be drowned.”

Richelieu does not answer.

“Do you wish to know?”

Richelieu looks up again. “You could show me that?”

“If you wish it.” The spirit’s face is impassive.

“Then show me.”

The spirit holds up a hand. “Think carefully.”

“Show me!” The echoes of Richelieu’s cry come back to him.

The world blurs.

* * *

“Puddles,” a little girl is saying. She is small, perhaps four or five, and small even for her age. A shock of pale hair is inexpertly tied back in a rudimentary braid. Her frock is old and much-patched. Richelieu does not recognize her, but that means little. He had not been encouraged to make friends with the children of the village.

“That’s a stupid name for a dog,” a boy says. He’s somewhat older, but his clothes and hair mark him as the first girl’s sibling. “We should call him tiger!”

“There are no tigers in France,” an older girl says, smiling.

“But there are puddles!” The little girl beams. “We walked through three on the way here!”

“And splashed your dress,” the boy says. “Mama will be mad.”

“She won’t mind,” the little girl says. “Not when she finds out what we got. A dog! A whole dog, just for us!”

“Don’t see what’s so great about a dog if it doesn’t have a good name,” the boy sulks.

They’re walking down a dirt road; it’s the main road of Richelieu village. The dog is with them. They turn down a smaller path, and go into a small dwelling built there.

“Verity, did you splash your dress again?” says the woman standing over the stove, without even turning around.

“Hah!” the boy says.

“Never mind my dress!” the little girl, Verity, says. “Mama, look! It’s a dog!”

The woman sets down the wooden spoon she’s using to stir and looks.

“Now where did you get him?” she asks. Her accent is as broad as she is thin, but she looks strong, and her smile is warm.

“From the great lady up at the house!” Verity says.

The women looks taken aback. “From the lady?”

“From one of the servants,” the oldest girl corrects. “Old Marie. She was for setting the dog free in the woods; they had too many from the last litter, she said, and couldn’t keep them all. But Verity and Michel wanted to bring him home, so Marie said we could, and if we couldn’t keep him, it was no skin off her back.”

The woman’s drying her hands on the apron she wears, absently, as if she’s forgotten it. “Another mouth to feed, children?”

“He likes us,” Verity falters.

The pup thumps its tail on the ground, and grins a canine grin.

“I’ll teach him to hunt!” the boy, Michel, says. “He’ll catch his own food, and some for us, too!”

“That’s not a hunting dog,” the woman says.

“Any dog can hunt,” Michel says stubbornly.

Verity is starting to look afraid. “Mama, you’re not saying – ”

The woman sighs. “He can have a few bones, at least, until your father comes home. Papa will decide.”

“Yay!” the children cheer, as if it’s already settled.

The woman begins fishing in the stew-pot for a bone.

Richelieu, watching from one side, asks, “What does their father say?”

“Their father is the baker,” Cahusac says, as the children accept the bones eagerly from their mother and run off to play with their new companion. “He adores his family. He says they may keep the dog.”

“So my mother told me the truth,” Richelieu says. “The dog was adopted by a family in the village.”

“Yes.”

The children are laughing. The woman stirring the soup smiles to herself, and begins to sing.

“They seem happy,” Richelieu says in bewilderment. “How can they be happy?”

“Why shouldn’t they be?”

“They’re poor!”

“And they will be poor all their lives,” Cahusac agrees.

“Why don’t they act like it?”

“What does it mean to act like one is poor?”

“They – they should be unhappy!”

“They do not seem unhappy.”

“Poverty is unhappiness.” Richelieu shakes his head. “I have seen it! Beggars, the homeless – they scrabble all their lives for a crust of bread, and are at the mercy of every cruel man who passes by. They have no hope of security. They have no hope of happiness. Only of Heaven.”

“For many that is true,” Cahusac agrees. “But there is a wide range of conditions to be found on earth. One can lack piano lessons, and still have happiness.” The spirit pauses, then says, ruthlessly, “Is there not something in the scriptures about this?”

Chastened, Richelieu falters. “But – they cannot protect the ones they love.”

“From what must they be protected?”

“From fire, or flood – from the wrath of their feudal lords – from raiders or brigands – from war – from plague.” When the spirit doesn’t dispute this, Richelieu grows bolder. “Money and power protect from those things.”

“They do,” Cahusac agrees.

“So, then.”

“What have you to protect?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You have dedicated your life to the acquisition of money and power. For what do you use it? What have you to protect?”

The world melts around them slowly, fading to fog. Gone is the stew-pot and the woman stirring it. Gone are the four walls of the little house. Gone are the children. Gone is the dog.

Gone, last of all, is the childish laughter ringing through the air, and the joyous barks that accompany it.

“I protect France,” Richelieu says.

“Not you alone; rather the Crown, and though you work for the Crown’s power, it is your own you think of first.”

“I protect the Church.”

“Not you alone; rather the Pope, and your fellow priests, and I have never observed that you work for their benefit.”

“I protect my servants. My Guards. The man whose face you wear.”

“Yes. And they protect you in return.”

“So!”

“Is that all?”

Richelieu presses his lips together. “We have returned to this, then.”

“We have never left it, Cardinal Richelieu.”

Richelieu knows what the spirit is waiting to hear. He resists briefly. Then the spirit’s words on the topic of choice return to him. And Richelieu finds that he is not – yet – ready to turn aside from this path.

“I protect my lover,” Richelieu says, half-resigned, half-defiant.

The fog clears. They stand again in Richelieu’s bedchamber.

“Your mother would have said, she protects you,” the spirit says. “By taking away the dog, by setting you against your siblings, by driving you to worldly success. All of that for your protection. So that you will never know want, whether it be the want of money, or of power, or of any other thing of this earth.”

Richelieu does not reply.

“She would have protected you from love,” Cahusac says. “Do you love, Cardinal?”

“You know I do,” he says, low-voiced.

“Are you glad you love?”

“Yes.”

“Even though it makes you vulnerable?”

“Yes.”

“Even though it brings you pain?”

“Yes.”

“How much, then, do you value your mother’s idea of protection?”

Richelieu does not reply.

“If you do not value it in this area, why do you cling to it so hard in every other area?”

Richelieu still does not reply.

In the silence, the clock against the far wall begins to chime.

“My time is nearly gone,” the spirit says. “I will leave you now; think of what I have said, and await the coming of my brothers.”

The clock chimes again. The spirit inclines its head in farewell.

“One question, spirit, if I may,” Richelieu says.

“Ask it; only be quick.”

“Why do you wear that face? You have told me,” he adds quickly, when he sees the spirit frown, “that you wear a face in deference to mortal fragility. Very well; what I ask is, why _that_ face?”

The spirit smiles. It is the first favorable expression Richelieu has seen on its face.

“You protect those you love,” the spirit says.

The clock chimes again, and the spirit is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Alone again, Richelieu finds his senses reeling. He staggers over to the chair by his desk and sinks into it.

Repeatedly his gaze scans the small room in which he finds himself. Every detail is examined and reexamined. It is all as it had been, when he’d first laid himself down for sleep. The shutters neatly-painted, the rug faded with age and washing, the desk piled with papers instead of books. A sudden thought takes Richelieu and he fumbles at his dressing-gown for the key he had laid in its pocket. The key is present, but when Richelieu attempts to fit it to its lock, to open the secret compartments of his desk to observe for himself that his secret papers are present – that he himself is _in_ the present – he cannot. The key refuses to enter the lock. It is not that they key does not fit; it will not even make the attempt, hovering scant breaths before the aperture despite all of Richelieu’s attempts to slide it home.

“The key is no more substantial than you are,” a voice says from behind Richelieu. “The real key lies where you had laid it, in your dressing-gown.”

“I am wearing my dressing-gown,” Richelieu says. He makes an effort to pronounce these words normally, but inside he trembles, knowing to whom the voice belongs.

“Of course you’re not,” a second, cheerful voice rejoins. “Not any more than you’re really sitting in that chair. You’ve been over this; you’re a spirit, just as we are.”

This second voice prompts Richelieu to spin around. A distant part of his mind remarks that he really might have known it. The first voice had been Bernajoux’s, and wherever Bernajoux goes, his lover Boisrenard goes likewise.

Upon reflection, that mere fact ought to have prompted Richelieu to expect their appearance ere now. The entire purpose of tonight’s shadow play, after all, is to discuss the matter of Richelieu’s lover, and how Treville most emphatically does _not_ follow wherever Richelieu leads.

“Your point of view is most illuminating,” Bernajoux observes. “Is it always he that must follow, then, and you who are to lead? Does that belief form part of why you rejected his plan for this Christmas journey – because it had not been you who had invented it?”

“Or perhaps it is simpler than that,” Boisrenard suggests. “Perhaps it is only that Treville refuses to be controlled.”

The spirits are watching Richelieu. They appear to be his Guards, but are not. The pallor of the grave sits oddly on Bernajoux’s dark skin. It makes him look, not pale, but grey. Washed out. As if he is being erased. Richelieu does not like it.

He likes the apparition of Boisrenard still less. The spirit may wear Boisrenard’s countenance, but he wears it ill. His face is too still: his speech is too formal. When it comes to Boisrenard the spirit borrowing his form has missed some crucial element. Boisrenard is expressive. He is passionate. He laughs, he jests, he cheers. He weeps after battle. He is openly affectionate, at times to the point of foolishness, given the object of said affections. This spirit is as grave as the other two. It gives the lie to the familiar visage, even as the spirits study Richelieu in their turn.

Richelieu could protest their statements; but can he do so in all truth? Does he truly not resent, in some part of his soul, that Treville will not be led? Does he not rail, in his secret heart, that Treville does not give to Richelieu the obedience that Richelieu had once expected from that nameless ideal, _my lover_? Does Richelieu not wish – as much as he loves that Treville is free from all the madnesses and pressures that make up Richelieu’s past, present and future – that Treville were _more like him_?

“You have come to show me the error of my ways,” Richelieu says to their scrutiny, weary, all abruptly, of this pretense.

“We have,” the two spirits say with one voice.

“Then do so.” Pride is a powerful force; pride, like hatred, like love, can produce effects that no amount of discipline can achieve. It is pride that propels Richelieu to his feet now, pride that keeps him standing, vulnerable and defiant, as the spirits reach forward and take one of Richelieu’s hands apiece.

The world blurs.

* * *

“Paris,” Richelieu says.

“Just so,” Bernajoux agrees.

“The Palais-Cardinal,” Richelieu says.

“Where else?” Boisrenard replies.

Richelieu considers this for a moment, gravely, in order to convey that his words are not the mere frippery of a moment but a genuine reply. “The Musketeers’ garrison, perhaps?”

“If you wish to go there, we will go there,” Bernajoux says.

“Surely _you_ wish me to go there!”

“We wish to show you the error of your ways, to borrow your charming idiom,” Boisrenard replies.

“And have you no specific plan for doing so, beyond bringing me to Paris?” Richelieu inquires, keeping his voice calm despite the frustration and anger that begs to be let free.

Bernajoux tilts his head to one side. “What good are divine plans, in the face of a mortal’s free will?”

Richelieu gapes. “Blasphemy!”

“You pose a fascinating question,” Boisrenard muses. “ _Can_ such as we blaspheme? We do not share the mortals’ free will; but, wearing their visage for a time, we take on some elements of their personality. Perhaps – ”

“Perhaps this is a question for another time,” Bernajoux cuts in.

Richelieu gapes still, though now only in part for the theological conundrum put before him. Earlier, in the safety of his rooms, he had meditated on the ways in which this spirit wears Boisrenard’s seeming poorly. And yet just now – that moment, just now – when the spirit had pondered, and questioned – and then when the other spirit had intervened, sounding fond –

“I thought you appeared to me in the forms that were best for me,” Richelieu hazards. “But now perhaps I think – ”

“There is some of both,” Boisrenard says. “The teacher and the student are well matched.”

“Best not to pursue this topic any further,” Bernajoux says, a warning in his voice. “We are here for _you_ , Richelieu, not for ourselves. Our own choices have been made, this many a year.”

“While yours are yet before you.” Boisrenard smiles. Earlier Richelieu had thought that the spirit does that poorly, too. Now the expression begins to take on a more natural air.

“And therein lies the answer to your question.” Bernajoux makes a sweeping gesture, taking in all of Paris, where it lies spread out beneath them from their vantage point atop the tallest part of the Palais-Cardinal. “We have brought you to Paris. Why? Because – you are here. Your mind is here, with all your intrigues; your soul is here, with all your pastoral matters; and your heart, too, is here.”

“We are the spirits appointed to speak to you of your present,” Boisrenard takes over. “Your past was in Indre-et-Loire; your future is – yet to be told; but your present, indeed, is here.”

“As a young man you left your childhood estates behind, with gladness in your heart and a heavy burden sliding from your shoulders. Yet you have rebuilt that burden. Heavier and heavier, it grinds upon you. It is a ponderous weight, Richelieu!”

“How do you shoulder it?”

“ _Will_ you shoulder it?”

“Or will it crush you?”

Richelieu shudders. The spirits’ voices ring through the air, reverberating with an uncanny echo that sets all of Richelieu’s nerves akindle. The sky had been dark when they’d arrived, but it has been lightening steadily: as the spirits speak, as their words hang in the air like portents, the sky turns grey. It is the grey of the grave, the grey of the Gates of Heaven, the grey that sits between the dark and the light and offers equal access to either, awaiting only the choice of the seeker.

Then the grey vanishes, in the first burst of the sun’s rays above the Earth.

“It is morning,” Bernajoux says.

“It is Christmas morning,” Boisrenard says.

“Christ is born,” Bernajoux says.

Richelieu crosses himself. It is not automatic. He does so solemnly, and for the first time in many years pays conscious attention to the gesture.

“Choose, Richelieu,” Boisrenard says. “It is Christmas morning in Paris; the day is before you; the choice is yours. Where shall we go?”

“The garrison,” Richelieu says. “Take me to the Musketeers’ garrison.”

* * *

The blurring of the world around him as they travel begins to become familiar. Richelieu knows now to expect it, creeping in from the corners of his eyes until his entire vision is wiped clean in a single instant. He blinks in the same manner as he has done before, and his sight returns to him easily. His hearing, less affected by the uncanny mechanics of their travel, has already recorded the sounds of groaning and vomiting.

“I see the usual traditions have been observed,” Richelieu says dryly, as his gaze clears to encompass various miserable-seeming Musketeers in various states of dishevelment and distress. The barracks, just beyond the practice-yard, no doubt hold still more revelers paying now for their last night’s liberty. The sample before Richelieu will have been those who had fared the worst, having been evidently unable to reach the relative safety and privacy of their bunks before succumbing to wine-sickness.

“Naturally,” Bernajoux says, a trifle aloofly.

“How many injured? Musketeers, Guards?”

“The usual number, I should think. Your lover will have the tally.”

“A tally, you think, already?” Richelieu smiles, for the first time in genuine amusement. “You are no doubt thinking, spirit, that, as Captain of this band of ragamuffins, Treville will have kept his celebrations moderate, and be in a position to give an accurate report. – I assure you that that will not be so. Sober as he is at court, or on the battlefield, Jean loves wine as much as any soldier. And, when you consider how beloved he is by his men – if I may call them that – ” (gazing tolerantly at a barely-bearded d’Artagnan, who stumbles into the garrison at this moment, escorted by an Athos whose apparent sobriety does not fool the Cardinal into thinking the elder Musketeer has drunk any less) “ – I’d wager that Jean is three times as drunk as any Musketeer! Only, being their Captain, they will have made sure that he at least got to his bed, even if they themselves then collapsed on the ground with the horses.”

“Do you think so?” Boisrenard says.

Richelieu looks between the two spirits in surprise. He is by no means a slow learner, Cardinal Richelieu, nor in the least deficient in understanding; he therefore has realized already, that when that question is put to him, it means that Richelieu has spoken wrongly. He is however unable to fathom, at this moment, where he has gone astray.

“I do think so,” Richelieu says at last, unable to formulate an alternative response.

The two spirits share a look, whose meaning Richelieu cannot divine.

“But since you seem to doubt it,” Richelieu adds, “Let us go and visit him.”

He turns towards the garrison’s stairs resolutely. The spirits fall in behind him, insubstantial footfalls silent.

The stairs, thankfully, are free of any Musketeers laid low. Richelieu thinks he might pass through them, in his ghostly form. Then he stops thinking on the matter, for it puts him in a spin.

The door to Treville’s office poses its own conundrum. Richelieu reaches out to its handle without much hope. Indeed, his hand refuses to make contact with the roughly-hewn wood. Richelieu attempts to push it open regardless. The door does not move.

Richelieu drops his hand and turns to the two spirits, standing behind him on the stairs. “Can you not transport us inside?”

“No need,” Bernajoux says.

The door opens.

“I was unaware you had that capability,” Richelieu begins. He’s interrupted by a force that pushes him to the side, knocking him with moderate strength against the railing of the small landing.

The spirits had not opened the door, Richelieu realize. Treville had. Treville has walked out of his office; contact with his solid form had sent Richelieu to the railing, answering Richelieu’s unasked question of what would happen were his insubstantial form to collide with those he sees around him.

“He seems well,” Bernajoux says, stepping out of Treville’s path to allow the other man to pass.

“Certainly he is not still sleeping off his wine,” Boisrenard says, doing the same. Treville’s gaze goes right through the spirit; he proceeds down the stairs at an unhurried pace.

Richelieu stares after his lover. Jean does seem well; there seems therefore to be little cause for concern. And yet Richelieu feels concern.

Jean – Treville – is fully dressed. His uniform is impeccable. Treville’s gaze sweeps over the men in the courtyard, and the Captain sighs over his regiment, but takes no further notice than to detour around a groaning Musketeer as he disappears into the stable.

He is behaving as if it is in all ways an ordinary morning. Except – except –

Minutes pass while Richelieu grapples with the problem of what is wrong with what he’s seen. The Musketeers have their own Christmas traditions, as Richelieu knows. They involve drinking and brawling. They begin on Christmas Eve – last eve – and continue until they are all unconscious, imprisoned, or in the care of a physician. They are not the kind of revels that leave a man clear-eyed and well-groomed the morning after.

As their Captain, Treville should have been in the thick of these revels. Rank has not much changed Treville from the cocky Gascon youth who’d first made his name by smiling dangerously, dueling lethally, and drinking as hard as any two men in his unit. His Musketeers love him, this larger than life figure who is alternately their closest brother and sternest father. It is because of the former that he can be the latter. They accept his discipline because they know he is a kindred spirit, one of their own, who had defined what it is to be a Musketeer from the regiment’s inception to the present day.

It is therefore in all ways inconceivable that Treville should be upright, sober, and uninjured, the day after their regiment’s annual Bacchanalia. Richelieu’s mind therefore turns to the task of finding excuses for this appearance. Treville’s uniform is clean; very well, Treville is wealthy enough to own many uniforms, and the clothes of today need not reflect the depredations of yesterday. Then, too, Treville appears uninjured – but he is the best swordsman in the regiment; nay, in France! And if the usual entertainment of the Musketeers on Christmas is the tavern-fight rather than the duel – well – is it not characteristic of Treville, that he should find the latter on a day traditionally devoted to the former? Therefore it is no great wonder that he sports neither black eye nor split lip, the customary badges of honor on Christmas Day.

But here Richelieu’s invention gives out. The clean uniform and the unblemished face he has accounted for. The rest prove beyond him. Treville’s step is firm and unwavering, and his eyes are clear: he shows no sign of the effects of alcohol. More to the point, he is awake. For the amount of wine Richelieu had been supposing him to have drunk on the preceding evening, that is astonishing.

Perhaps Treville had been moderate. Perhaps he had felt himself to be in a position of authority, and chosen to honor it, rather than casting it aside to pretend for a day as if he is a young solider again. Perhaps – perhaps –

Richelieu cannot fool himself with all of these _perhaps_ es. He knows his lover too well. Treville would not have chosen to refrain; something has happened.

“Something has happened,” Richelieu repeats aloud, hearing the concern in his own voice, a damnation. “What is it?”

“Happened?” Bernajoux says. “Why, nothing.”

“Nothing at all,” Boisrenard agrees.

“Nothing?” Richelieu cries. “I expected to find him dead to the world, or else still drunk; with a bloody nose and a handful of bruises, and a smile on his face to rival the sun! Instead I see – I – I know not what!”

(This somewhat inane conclusion, to what had otherwise been a most powerful and rousing speech, is not the effect of the Cardinal’s rhetoric being unequal to the task. Rather it is the effect of distraction. Partway through speaking, Treville emerges from the stables, leading his favorite horse.)

“You see nothing,” Bernajoux says calmly.

“You see rather the _effects_ of nothing,” Boisrenard amends. “Your Captain did not revel last night, Cardinal. He drank moderately in the company of a few friends, ate early, and retired likewise.”

“Did the Musketeers not revel last night?” Richelieu asks in blank confusion.

“They did, and most thoroughly.”

“Why did Treville not join them?”

The Captain mounts his horse. Turning a blind eye to the plight of his men, he rides out of the garrison.

“He was not asked,” Bernajoux says.

Richelieu attempts to find words for how improbable he finds this. Failing to do so, he merely glares.

Boisrenard sighs. “Do you find that so unlikely?”

“Your word games grow tiresome,” Richelieu grinds out. “Speak, and tell the whole story.”

“There is little to tell,” Bernajoux says simply. “The Musketeers have gotten out of the habit of including their Captain in their revels. He is rarely available, these days.”

“Rarely?” Richelieu scoffs. “He is always – ”

“At the palace, engaged into the intrigue in which you have drawn him?” Boisrenard suggests. “Opposing your schemes, or collaborating with you on them?”

“That happens – ”

“Increasingly often,” Bernajoux says.

“Even so, there are many nights – ”

“Where he is to be found elsewhere,” Boisrenard completes. “The Musketeers joke. They believe their Captain to have a mistress somewhere. A married woman, they conjecture, or a high noble. Perhaps both, with how secretive he always is about his assignations. There is a collective wager on the lady’s identity. The best odds belong to Mme de Chevreuse.”

“Your name is not among those which have accrued either odds or bets,” Bernajoux says unnecessarily.

“Still, whomever the mysterious lover is, the Musketeers are all agreed on one thing,” Boisrenard says.

“What?” Richelieu whispers.

Boisrenard shrugs. “Treville must love her very much.”

Richelieu feels something impact his buttocks. He realizes that he has sat down upon the topmost step, without having quite intended to.

“On what do they base that conclusion?” he asks hoarsely.

“On the behavior of their Captain,” Bernajoux says. He sounds impatient.

Boisrenard, by contrast, sounds gentle. “He truly doesn’t realize it,” he says to his fellow spirit. “Be kind. He is farther down the path than we had foreseen.”

“How can he not know it?” Bernajoux snaps. He turns his gaze to Richelieu, and there is anger in his eyes. “Your Captain neglects his duty, his position, and his men to be at your side. They did not give up inviting him to their revels overnight. They asked, and they asked, and they asked again. At first, for every five refusals there would be an acceptance; and as long as they had that acceptance, they kept asking. But your demands on him grew greater. The cost of your love grew higher. Your Captain paid it out of the only coin he had – his time and energy. Did you never ask, all of those evenings, what he was giving up to argue history with you? Sitting by your fireside, surrounded by your own comforts, your own Guards, your own servants – while he was a guest in your home, entirely dependent on you, neglecting the little duties which are defined in no military code but which are nonetheless vital to the harmonious operation of any group of men! The Musketeers have not stopped loving their Captain; I think nothing could make them do that; but they have stopped thinking of him as one of them. He is high above them now; he is remote. He attends at court while they drill. He politicks while they parade. Even when they make a campaign, he is not to be found among them, in the dirt with them, sharing their hardships as would be his wont. Where is he, Richelieu? He is ten miles away, in the nearest town! With the King, he tells them – that is to say, with you.”

Richelieu’s lips have parted. No sound emerges. He stares, wide-eyed, at the spirit who wears Bernajoux’s face. Steady, dependable Bernajoux, who is always at Richelieu’s side. Like Treville’s officers are always at his side; except – except –

Except that they are not, anymore. Now Treville’s officers lead the Musketeers, while Treville turns his attention elsewhere. Treville is still their father. But he is no longer their brother. No longer their comrade.

“When the day came for their revels they did not think to invite their Captain,” Bernajoux repeats. This time the anger in his tone is apparent.

“Say truly, my companion,” Boisrenard says unexpectedly. To Richelieu he says: “Some of them did think it; only they then said to themselves, _of course Treville is not here: Treville has gone to visit his mistress. It is Christmas, and so Treville has gone to visit his mistress, therefore he is not here to ask._ ”

“But he _was_ here,” Richelieu says stupidly.

Boisrenard shakes his head. “He had gone out. He did not return until the revels had already started, and the garrison was empty.”

“He planned it that way,” Bernajoux says. “He wished to be away.”

“Why?” Richelieu gasps.

“To your lover, Christmas is a time for family,” Boisrenard says.

“The Musketeers are his family!”

“Not anymore,” Bernajoux says implacably. “You claim to have loved him, but you have been very selfish. All your love has been on your terms. You have detached him from the family he had had before.”

“You did not trick him,” Boisrenard says; from his tone, he thinks this to be a comfort. “Treville knew this was happening. He consented to it, because he thought what he was gaining was worth what he was giving up. After all, his Musketeers still love him; they simply do so from a remove. The love for a parent instead of the love for a brother. And he thought, perhaps…” Boisrenard cocks his head to one side, as if he is listening to something. Slowly he says: “He thought perhaps that it was time he grew up.”

Bernajoux is still scowling. “But then, when, in need of family, he turned to you – you who had taken his old family from him, and told him to consider you in their place – ”

“I rejected him,” Richelieu whispers.

There is a moment of silence following this proclamation, broken only by the assorted sounds produced by drunken Musketeers.

“Where _did_ he go last night?” Richelieu asks at length. He does not ask it to put the other matter aside – indeed, that would be impossible – but to complete the picture, so that he may fully understand the depth of his failure.

The two spirits exchange looks again. “Is it permitted?” Bernajoux asks, sounding doubtful.

“It is in the past,” Boisrenard explains to Richelieu’s questioning gaze. “We are concerned only with the present.”

“But this is the present,” Richelieu says. This, here, is something he understands: a point to be argued, a concession to be gained. “In my time, it is the night before Christmas. You brought me to Paris at dawn on Christmas morn; but that is the future. _This_ is the future. The near future, I grant you, but the future nonetheless. If the present is your concern, then take me to the present – to the exact present moment – in the wee hours of the night, between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And take me then to the place where Jean is, or was, or will be.”

“It may be possible,” Boisrenard says slowly.

“Please,” Richelieu says, swallowing his pride with the help of shame, and holding out both of his hands in supplication to the spirits who, standing, tower over his seated form.

“Let it be done,” Boisrenard says. He reaches forward.

Bernajoux hesitates a moment longer. But then he too reaches out, and both spirits grasp Richelieu’s hands.

The world blurs.

* * *

Their new surroundings filter in to the sound of laughter. It does not come from a distance; it is nearby, in the room with them. It does not echo. The room is carpeted and tapestried. A fire crackles nearby.

Richelieu knows where he is before his vision clears.

“And then he says, ‘it’s terrible what time has done to you’,” a familiar voice recounts, to the sound of renewed merriment. These sounds, too, are familiar.

“Jean came here?” Richelieu says in bewildered astonishment, as the world returns to its customary sharpness, revealing the private drawing-room at the Palais-Cardinal in all its familiar splendor.

“As you see,” Bernajoux says.

Or, rather, the spirit wearing Bernajoux’s face says. The true Bernajoux sits on one of Richelieu’s comfortable chaises. Boisrenard has crammed himself onto the same piece of furniture, which, as said piece had never been meant to accommodate two – never mind two full-grown, well-muscled soldiers – has required a great deal of effort and compromise. Boisrenard’s legs hang off the end of one of the arms; his head is pillowed in his lover’s lap. He’s laughing the hardest, as is his custom. Bernajoux is smiling, despite his cramped situation. Cahusac, who had apparently been telling the story, is drinking a cup of wine from where he sprawls before the fire like a satisfied hunting-hound. And Jean is ensconced in his usual chair, a wine-cup of his own forgotten on the table to hand.

“What did the Queen Mother say to that?” Jean asks.

“She turned pale with rage, and could not seem to find any words,” Cahusac says in satisfaction.

Jean laughs with the others at this conclusion; but Richelieu does not require the significant cough from the spirit to his left, nor the none-too-gentle nudge from the spirit to his right, to observe that Jean’s laughter is thinner, and his smile less wide, than that of his companions.

His companions. Richelieu’s soldiers, the officers of his Red Guard. The sworn enemies of the Musketeers. The Musketeers who are out reveling, and surely they would be glad of the company of their Captain, even if they have learned not to ask for it. Why would Jean come here instead? What is there for him here, in comparison to what he could have elsewhere? Why come here, if being here makes his smile strained and his laughter thin? If being here makes him stare morosely into his wine-cup when he thinks himself unobserved?

Said companions must notice the same, for Cahusac sets his wine aside with a sigh, and even Boisrenard assumes a more serious mien. It’s Bernajoux, however, who speaks. In Jussac’s absence he leads the Guard. Though in this room there seem not to be Guards, but only men.

“Treville, it’s not that we don’t like your wine or your company,” Bernajoux begins with his usual bluntness. “Truth be told, it’s nice to have both, since otherwise we’d just be bored out of our minds with only each other for amusement.”

“Though even that’s preferable to breaking up riotous knots of drunken Musketeers,” Boisrenard mutters.

“ _Va te faire foutre_ _,_ ” Treville says sweetly. Richelieu tenses instinctively, expecting a brawl to erupt right in the middle of his favored sanctuary, but relaxes a moment later when Cahusac only laughs and Boisrenard cheerfully makes the corresponding gesture lazily in Jean’s direction.

“They’re friends,” Richelieu says in astonishment.

“Why should that surprise you?” the spirit to his left replies. “They have much in common.”

“Red Guards and Musketeers?” Richelieu tries to laugh; it sounds no more convincing than Jean’s had, a moment ago.

“Bernajoux, Boisrenard, Cahusac, and Treville,” the spirit to Richelieu’s right corrects. “They serve France, are soldiers, and love you.”

“Men have died for each other for less,” the spirit to Richelieu’s left observes.

In the loose circle of the living, Bernajoux is quieting Boisrenard with a hand over his mouth; if the look of amused, tolerant pain crossing his face is any indication, Boisrenard has just bitten him. “Regardless,” Bernajoux goes on. “What are you still doing in Paris?”

The room goes quiet and still. Even the fire forbears to crackle.

“Where else would I be?” Treville says after a moment. He says it with the quiet dignity that becomes him so well; but it does not escape Richelieu’s attention that Treville’s gaze, usually so forthright, now settles somewhere in the range of the Donatello displayed in the corner.

“Richelieu.”

It is unclear, from Bernajoux’s expression, whether he means to refer to the lands or to the man. The man, watching, suspects this is deliberate. Bernajoux’s opponents underestimate him at their peril: he is the cleverest of all the Cardinal’s officers, though he chooses to conceal it. The implication is, that Treville should be at Richelieu’s side, wherever that may be – and that in this case, that place is the Richelieu estates, where Richelieu’s body slumbers even now.

When Treville replies, still with that terrible dignity, it is clear that he understands that subtext well. “My place is in Paris.”

 _No_ , Richelieu wants to say. _No, Jean, do not say that._ He knows that Treville does not speak of his duties to the crown, nor his commission, nor his role at court. Treville speaks of himself in reference to his place in Richelieu’s life. Or rather, his lack thereof. Treville sees himself as part of Richelieu’s Parisian circle. A diversion while Richelieu is at court, with no claim to whatever Richelieu’s life may be beyond it. In short –

 _They believe their Captain to have a mistress somewhere,_ the spirits had said. _A married woman, they conjecture, or a high noble. Perhaps both, with how secretive he always is about his assignations._

The Musketeers are mistaken. It is Treville who plays the role of mistress in their arrangement. Richelieu goes off to attend to the rest of his life, the title he holds, the lands he owns, the public and private roles of liege lord, son, brother, mourner. In Armand’s personal life, his _family_ , Jean plays no part. Jean’s only part in Richelieu’s life is here in Paris.

Abandoned by his lover for more important things – isolated from the family and friends he might otherwise claim – Jean waits, lonely, for his lover’s return. He has no control over the time of that return. And so he spends Christmas Eve with his lover’s personal guard, as the closest thing to family he has left.

The spirits, at Richelieu’s side, do not speak.

The flesh-and-blood Guards are not so reticent. Cahusac sets his wine-cup down harder than necessary, and Boisrenard sits up from where he had been lying prone, cursing as he does so.

“Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding,” Bernajoux says, still calm. “Perhaps Richelieu did not know you would have gone with him, had he asked.”

“He did not ask; I offered,” Treville says. The steadiness of his voice, the absence of emotion, is an accusation unto itself. Treville is not angry; he does not bemoan his fate. His is the peace of acceptance. He has learned his true worth, his true meaning to Richelieu; he has resigned himself.

“No,” Richelieu protests again. His words fall on deaf ears. Only the spirits can hear him.

The other Red Guards are exclaiming. Cahusac looks angry; Boisrenard, outraged. Bernajoux’s expression has flattened out into one that, Richelieu knows, bodes ill for Richelieu himself.

Richelieu cannot hear what they say. The world is blurring around him.

“Wait!” he cries – to no avail.

* * *

The familiar surroundings of his childhood rooms come into view, and Richelieu curses.

“Calm yourself,” the spirit of Bernajoux says sternly. “You had already heard and seen more than you ought to have had.”

“The abrupt departure was regrettable but necessary,” Boisrenard agrees. “Matters may only be pushed so far. Staying longer would have jeopardized more than your soul, Cardinal.”

“But – ” Richelieu cuts himself off. He breathes deeply, mastering himself, as he’d been taught. Putting his emotions aside to focus on the practicalities.

Their visitation at the Palais-Cardinal had been brief. But, brief as it had been, still it had been informative. Richelieu knows what he needs to know now. He knows – he knows –

 _Oh, Jean_.

“We must leave you now,” Bernajoux says. “We may go no further. It is forbidden.”

“Another still comes after us,” Boisrenard adds. “Ask him your questions. He can show you what we cannot.”

Richelieu recalls the words of the first spirit: _I am the first to come; my realm is that which has been. Next you will visit what is. Thirdly and finally, you will see what will be, if you do not turn aside from your current path._

“I am not certain I wish to see it,” Richelieu confesses, moved, in this strange moment, to honesty.

“Then you begin to grow wise,” Boisrenard says. He holds up a hand in farewell; it is already transparent.

“See that you do not decrease in wisdom ere you set matters right,” Bernajoux adds in warning. He, too, is becoming less distinct.

“Give me your blessing before you go,” Richelieu begs.

“You do not require it,” Bernajoux replies.

Boisrenard smiles. “No, for you begin to bless yourself.”

Richelieu draws his breath in. Instinctively he averts his gaze, looking down in humility. The words ring within him, echoing with a truth that he does not understand.

When he looks up again, the spirits are gone.


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of the clock striking reaches Richelieu’s ears. Automatically, he looks at it. It is striking five.

Five. Hadn’t it been striking two, when Richelieu had first risen to find the apparition of his mother, come to warn him? He frowns, trying to account for the difference.

“An hour for each,” he reckons aloud, to the stillness of the room. “No – I have miscounted – for then it should only be four; unless – ”

“Unless the third and final spirit is to come immediately before you,” a voice completes. “You are quite correct; and here I am.”

The voice draws nearer, and a figure steps out of the fog. Jussac. Of course.

“You are not Jussac,” Richelieu says to the man before him, an affirmation more than a question; though, of all the appearances the spirits have worn tonight, Jussac’s is the only one belonging to a man actually present upon the estate’s grounds. “You are only a shadow.”

“You are correct that I am not your Guard; but as to being a shadow, that is one of the things your Guard and I have in common.”

“Jussac can be said to be many things,” Richelieu says, “But a shadow?”

“Is he not?” the spirit replies.

“He is one of the most open and honest men I have ever known,” Richelieu says. “Although he lives in my world through necessity, it does not touch him.”

“And yet he is a shadow. _Your_ shadow.”

Richelieu raises his eyebrows.

“He follows you everywhere, in all the dark places you walk. If you need a knife, he has it ready. If you need a calm word, he prepares that likewise. He is ever at your side. You rely upon him as you rely upon your own right hand: always there, always faithful, never to be questioned.”

“I suppose you’re here to teach me to question him,” Richelieu says, refusing to allow the discomfort he feels at this thought to show.

Surprisingly, the spirit shakes his head. “Your shadow is exactly as he seems,” the spirit replies. “Loyal unto death. Do not fear his betrayal, Cardinal. I am not here to teach you to doubt your own strength.”

“Then what are you here to teach me?”

“To doubt your own fears.”

The spirit reaches forward and takes Richelieu’s hand. The world blurs around them.

* * *

When Richelieu’s vision clears, he takes in his surroundings rapidly, and nods slowly. “The Louvre,” he says. “So. This is where my future lies.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” Jussac replies.

“How far into the future have you brought me?”

“You are seeking the naming of a number of years; I cannot give you that. Indeed, in comparison to your previous companions, you will find that I speak less. It is required.”

“The other spirits said you could answer my questions,” Richelieu says.

Jussac’s brows draw together in surprise. “Did they tell you that? That was unwise of them.”

“I mean to speak no ill,” Richelieu says hastily.

“They are ever reckless,” Jussac mutters, sounding for a moment very similar to the Captain who grumbles about the shortcomings of his men. Then, to Richelieu: “They spoke truth to you; but be wary of the knowledge you have gained. Yes, in the answering of questions my power is greater. But I tell you now, and truly, that the lines I cannot cross are immutable.”

“I can readily comprehend that.”

“Can you?” the spirit murmurs. He shakes his head, however, when Richelieu looks at him sharply, and gestures behind them. “Come, against the wall.”

Richelieu obeys. When he is positioned safely away, he takes in the room, which is empty. This he does not comment on. He is confident, from the spirit’s behavior, that it will soon be inhabited. Instead he studies its furnishings and decorations, attempting to divine from them how far into the future he might be, and what changes those years may have wrought.

The room is one of those spaces of middling size with no fixed purpose, that exist to be used in whatever way conveniences the monarch and his servants the most. It is not fitted out as a bedchamber, nor large enough to be a receiving-room or other formal gathering-hall. Its most distinguishing feature is the table placed in its center. It is well-made and beautifully carved, as befits any piece of furniture at the King’s palace. But it is too large enough to be intended for gaming. Nor is it laid to be for dining. Instead, the half-dozen chairs that circle around it are supplied with paper and ink, and several rolls of parchment that can only be maps are neatly stacked in its centre.

“A politician’s room,” Richelieu observes aloud. He also takes notice, to himself, that in the time he has spent studying the room, the spirit has not spoken.

“And here comes the first politician,” Jussac replies.

Indeed, the door is opening. A servant opens it – there are servants outside the room, then; the gathering will begin soon. That the King will attend it is made plain by the quality and formality of the chair placed at the head of the table. The other attendees will give more of a clue to this gathering’s purpose. Richelieu turns his attention to the figure entering the room.

Something cold closes around his chest.

It is Treville. He is entering the room; and everything is wrong.

Begin with the clothes. Jean is not dressed in his uniform, formal or informal. He wears court dress, and wears it ill, obviously uncomfortable in the fine silks and brocades. Then there is what he does not wear. Sword and pistol are both missing. Jean is defenseless. Jean is _never_ defenseless.

Worse is the way Jean moves. Armand’s lover is a fighter, a warrior, and he moves always with a certain lightness and grace that hints at the deadly skills beneath the affable exterior. He moves confidently and plants his feet solidly as he strides or stands. Jean is a pillar. A rock.

This Jean is none of those things. This Jean waits, just inside the door, until the servant has closed it behind him. Then – when he thinks himself alone; when he thinks there is no one to see – he begins a slow, dragging, limping walk towards a chair.

“He’s injured,” Richelieu cries.

“No,” the spirit replies.

“What are you saying? Of course he is! He can barely walk, he – why isn’t he under a doctor’s care? How recent is the injury? He’s – ”

“He is not injured,” the spirit repeats. “He is maimed.”

There is a sound like a ringing in Richelieu’s ears. It is the slow _thump_ of Jean’s dragging footsteps as he slowly crosses the distance from the door to a chair, and even more slowly lowers himself down into it.

_Maimed_.

It’s there to see, now that Richelieu knows to look, now that he discards his first instinctive assumptions and truly observes what is before him. There is no white of bandages peeking out from beneath trouser cuffs or shirt hems. No physician following in Jean’s wake, clucking at him for having gotten out of his sickbed without permission. No gaggle of concerned Musketeer novices tasked by their elders to Treville’s aid, and incidentally to the irritation of their Captain.

Their Captain – Jean can barely walk across a room. He is no doubt being more careful, more cautious, thinking himself alone and unobserved, than he would be in company or in battle. But even the act of sitting causes Jean’s face to twist into an all-too-familiar rictus of pain. How can Jean fight – like this?

_Questions_ , Richelieu reminds himself. He gives the question voice: “How does Jean command the Musketeers?”

Richelieu hears his own voice oddly, as if from a great distance. Somehow it is steady. In his heart, though, Richelieu knows horror. He knows what the Musketeers mean to Jean. What being a soldier means to Jean. What being unable to do those things would mean.

“He doesn’t,” Jussac says gently. “Athos commands the Musketeers now.”

“What does Jean do?” He’s still at court. He still pushes himself to attend, even now.

“Louis made him Minister of War.”

Richelieu blows out a long breath. It’s well done of Louis, to keep Jean from throwing himself into a bottle or off a cliff, but – “He must hate that. The politics.”

“He does,” Jussac agrees. “But he’s surprisingly willing to do them.”

“Willing? Why?” A new thought occurs to Richelieu, and he pales. “Is France at war?”

Jussac nods. “With Spain.”

_Pale_ is no longer enough to describe Richelieu. All the blood leaves his face in a rush. He’s sure, if he looked in a mirror, he would be as white as the ghost that wears Jussac’s face. “We can’t win a war with Spain.”

“Nevertheless you are fighting it.”

“How? Why?” Richelieu cries. “How did I allow this? How did _Jean_ allow this?”

“You’re no longer in a position to allow or disallow anything,” Jussac says. And before the true horror of this statement can be known to Richelieu, before it can sink beneath his skin and curl its claws in his brain and heart, Jussac adds another still worse: “As for Treville, he’s an ironclad supporter of the war. Your beloved has learned hatred at long last.”

“And he hates the _Spanish_?”

“They’re the reason he has that limp. They’re the reason he wears that cross.”

Somehow, out of all of these terrible words, _cross_ is the one that jumps out. Jean wears no cross. Jean’s relationship with his faith is rocky at best. It’s taken all of Armand’s efforts to keep Jean on any sort of terms with God, when Jean would have thrown his faith away without a second thought, to spite the creator and the church who would tell him he’s wrong inside. What cross could Jean possibly wear?

As if to answer this question – as if he can hear their ghostly councils – Jean turns in his chair, attentive to a sound only he hears.

And Armand knows.

It’s Susanne’s cross that lies around Jean’s neck, the heavy, ornate golden thing that Richelieu has never liked, that he wears as a reminder of his family, of the aspirations he’d been taught, of the lessons he’d learned. Armand has power and wealth enough for ten Richelieu families’ dreams of avarice, but none of it is for him, or at least not for him alone. It is for God. For France. And some small part of it, Armand has always known, is for Jean. To protect Jean. To keep him in the comfort he would otherwise eschew. To preserve his life and his soul against the forces that battle Armand to steal it.

Armand’s cross lies around Jean’s neck. Jean is limping. He’s scarred. He bears a look of cold empty flame in his dead eyes. And France is at war with Spain – a war Armand is unable to prevent, and that Jean grimly supports.

Armand is dead.

“Yes,” Jussac agrees. Armand is reminded once again that the spirits can read some measure of his thoughts, but is consumed by too many other things to care, just now.

“How did it happen?” Richelieu whispers.

“You played one game too many,” Jussac says simply. “Dared fate and God one time too often in the quest for power. The Spanish sent an army to your estate, under cover of a terrible storm which raged for three days. Your Red Guard sold their lives dearly, but it was not enough; most perished, including the man who wears this face.”

“Who lived?” Richelieu asks. Can’t help but ask. But the spirit is shaking its head.

“Please,” Armand begs. “Who – if you can’t tell me everyone, at least tell me, of the faces the spirits have worn tonight, who lives? Any? Even one?”

“One,” Jussac says grudgingly. “The jokester, who with his lover visited you second.”

Armand’s voice barely makes a sound. “And his lover?”

“When the guardian received a mortal wound, he threw himself on his lover, so the enemy would think them both dead. The ploy worked. The guardian died there, with his life’s companion.”

“My fault.” Armand should pray for them, cross himself, plead God for mercy on their souls. He can only close his eyes for a brief moment. In the silence he sees Bernajoux, solid and steady, dying – and even in his last moments, protecting Boisrenard. Boisrenard, for whom there will be no more laughter.

Cahusac, too, then: dead. He had been married. Who supports his wife? His children? If Richelieu is gone, if his empire has crumbled to dust behind him, who pays their pensions, and the pensions of the other Guards? Who supports Jean in his decline? Who keeps France and its King steady?

It is this last question which Jussac chooses to answer. He says, “There is a new First Minister now.”

The door is opening a second time. Treville, sitting at the table, looks over to it. His lip twists.

George de Rochefort enters the room. He frowns when Treville makes no move to rise in greeting, then quickly smooths his expression out when Chancellor Dupré enters the room behind him and calls a greeting to Treville. Rochefort takes his own chair; Richelieu does not need to observe that it is the one at the King’s right hand, nor to see the ostentatious way Rochefort flashes his signet of office, to know that Rochefort has filled the position left vacant by Richelieu’s death.

“Rochefort is Spain’s creature.” Richelieu speaks through numb lips, contemplating the failure of all that he’d worked so hard to achieve.

The spirit nods. “After your death, the King came to rely on him more and more. Within a month he had been appointed to this position. His first act as First Minister was to urge the King to send a small group of men into Spain. To attempt to do to them what was done to France.”

Richelieu closes his eyes. “The mission failed?”

“Somehow – I will leave it to you to guess how – the Spanish knew to expect them.”

The spirit falls silent. Richelieu imagines what has been left unsaid. Dread curdles in his belly. A small group of men sent to their deaths. Rochefort, newly ascendant, cleaning house. The men would have been carefully chosen, no doubt; chosen to be the best, to be the brightest, to be the most loyal to Louis. The men Rochefort would most have wanted gone –

“Rochefort sent Musketeers,” Richelieu whispers, opening his eyes.

Jussac nods.

“Jean.” Richelieu has to pause, here, in order to breathe. Remembers to form his words as a question, though he is already certain in his heart of the truth – “Jean led them?”

“Your lover volunteered for the mission,” Jussac says blandly. “He, too, sought revenge.”

“But he lives,” Armand says stupidly.

“The Spanish saw opportunity in his presence. The others they merely killed. But the Captain of the King’s Musketeers knows many interesting things. A soldier can withstand much, in his body, and less, in his mind. An ideal candidate for torture. Especially if he has recently learned of his lover’s death.”

“The Spanish did not know that,” Armand protests reflexively.

The gentleness is gone from Jussac’s face now. In its place is an inexorable truth. “They knew,” he says. “Rochefort hated you; he devoted himself to learning all of your secrets, in order to destroy you. He knew. He told the Spanish. And they treated your lover as men like he are always treated by fanatics like they.”

“But he lives,” Armand says again, dumbly.

“He inspires great loyalty in those below him.” Jussac turns to study Jean, seated at the great table, studiously ignored by Rochefort. “His Musketeers freed him, though at a great cost of their own.”

“Which of them – ”

Jussac holds up a hand. “You begin to ask questions that do not bear on you,” he says sternly. “This is your story. To it and it alone are you entitled. I will not tell you his.”

The scrape of the door opening cuts off Armand’s hot reply. The other ministers enter, followed by the King. As he rises to greet the monarch, Rochefort’s countenance is set in a cast of exalted superiority. Never as Richelieu found it more repulsive.

Richelieu looks away. Watches, instead, as Jean struggles to stand and bow. Sees how gratefully – and gracelessly – Jean collapses into his chair again, after the King is seated. Sees how no one comments on Jean’s difficulty, or on his early arrival to the meeting.

Jean is proud. Prouder than Armand, truly, on all but a few points. He wouldn’t want others to see him struggle. So he arrives early to meetings. Probably stays late, too. And getting to the palace –

“Does he still live in the garrison?” Armand asks.

Jussac shakes his head. “The distance was too great,” Jussac replies. “The King has given him chambers in the Louvre.”

So. Jean not only has taken up a politician’s trade, as the only one left to him, but he’s given up his refuge, too. Now he lives in the palace, surrounded by courtiers and conspiracy. Now his day’s work is arguing and his night’s – what can he still do with his nights?

“Drink,” Jussac answers. “And dream of better days.”

“He has many friends,” Armand says through stiff lips. “You said it yourself, that he inspires loyalty.”

“Many of those in whom he inspired loyalty died repaying it,” Jussac says.

“But – those who remain?”

“Those who remain are often elsewhere, occupied by the business of war. His friends are soldiers. You know better than I that the courtiers and ministers of France hold him cheaply.”

Yes. Armand knows it. And if he hadn’t known it, he would have learned it, watching the meeting progress. No one snubs Jean, or insults him outright. Not even Rochefort. Not with the King watching. Not when Jean’s military expertise is so obvious and so obviously necessary. But they treat him as a tool. A scythe. And expect to put him down and leave him in his place when they have no immediate need of him.

Once Jean might not have noticed. But enough years with Armand has taught him better. Jean sees it all; Armand sees him ache.

The image begins to blur. Surprised and impatient with his own weakness, Armand swipes at his eyes, thinking that he weeps, only to find them dry. The world is blurring, not Armand’s vision. A moment later the meeting-room and the ministers are gone. Instead they are standing inside a set of luxurious chambers in a corner of the Louvre Armand knows, not too far from the King.

That the chambers are now Jean’s Armand does not wait to be told. The trappings and furnishings proclaim it to be so. Jean’s books are upon the shelves, familiar art upon the walls – Armand would not admit to being touched that Jean had kept the art, but he is – Jean’s clothes in the wardrobe. Jean’s sword, the plain, serviceable sword that his father had given him, that he had refused to ever have replaced with something finer, now hangs on the wall. A decoration and a reminder instead of an everyday tool. In one corner, upon a dummy, Jean’s formal uniform is displayed. His _old_ formal uniform. Made precisely to Jean’s specification. It cannot be reused, of course, and so it remains here, a ghost of Jean’s own making, haunting him forever with what he’s lost.

“That’s not all that haunts him,” Jussac says.

Armand turns. Jussac stands by the door. By it there is an alcove. It’s meant for a small devotional, a statue of the Virgin Mary, a relic of a dead saint. Such an alcove is in nearly every chamber in France. The one in Jean’s old chambers had been used to store liquor. A scandal for his housekeeper, who had used to gossip about it to the market-wives, and predict that her master would come to a bad end because of it.

Perhaps she’d been right.

“Look closer,” Jussac invites.

Almost automatically Armand obeys. He walks closer and studies the alcove. There is a candle burning beneath a crucifix. Again Armand recognizes the crucifix; it’s one of his. Not one of the ornate ones he’d kept for show. This one is first or second century, one of the originals used by the church even before the Council of Nicaea. Though no one can know for sure, it may have been old enough to have existed at the same time as the Apostle Paul. It may, so the legends say, have been touched by Paul, and blessed by him, during his visit to the church in Corinthea from whence this crucifix had come. As with so many things, this is a matter to be taken or left on faith. There are many crucifixes of which something like that has been said. It cannot be true of all or them, nor even of the greatest part. But Armand knows that the _belief_ in such a thing is the key. That it matters more than the reality. And so he keeps the crucifix, and chooses to have faith.

And so, evidently, does Jean. Armand is glad that Jean’s kept this one. That he’s chosen this one. Jean has never cared for gold and gems, not to be misled by them, but he might not have realized this one’s value; the wood is old, and the representation of Jesus is confined to two simple iron bars topped by an even simpler iron circle. Imagination is required to recognize it for what it is.

“Not imagination,” Jussac says. “Desperation. He searched for meaning in the ashes of his life. He searched for remnants of you.”

Jussac extends a hand. A finger. Points. Armand follows the line and sees a small reliquary sitting at the foot of the cross. A blackened bone nestles there among the sacred velvet.

“What saint is that?” Armand asks. A sudden worry grips him. The last reliquary Rome had sent to France had been poisoned, after all.

“No saint,” Jussac replies. “At least not yet. Everyone expects you will be canonized in due time, of course, but you have not yet performed any miracles. Jean hopes his healing may be the first.”

Armand stumbles back. He tries to catch himself on a chair, remembering too late that it will not hold him; he trips to the ground. From this position he sees Jussac’s feet, or rather, the feet of the spirit wearing Jussac’s face. They hover the barest inch above the ground. Nothing holds them. They are insubstantial, without form, passing through the ether as the angels do.

Armand has been avoiding thinking about it. Thinking about the ephemeral nature of his dreaming form, with all its implications for what lies beyond the veil of death. He thinks about it now. Confronted with the bone that is the remnant of Armand’s mortal flesh, Armand finds he cannot think of anything else.

His bone. A reliquary. In Jean’s chambers.

The door opens – Jussac steps aside, to permit its sweep – and Jean enters, slowly. Jean’s dragging steps pause when he is barely within the door, and he pushes the door closed. He does so with his left hand, awkwardly. Armand recalls that during the meeting Jean had taken no notes. He looks to Jean’s right hand, his sword-hand. It is gloved, but that does not conceal that several of its fingers are missing.

It is with that hand that Jean reaches out to the reliquary and brushes it over the bone sitting nestled in its sacred velvet. Jean crosses himself, touching the crucifix that still swings around its chain on his neck, before he resumes his slow limping gait towards the padded chair behind the small desk.

“Jean,” Armand whispers. “Oh, God, Jean.”

Jean lowers himself into this chair as he’d lowered himself into the chair in the meeting room. This time he doesn’t hold back a long soft whine of pain. Once seated he reaches down and tugs his left leg up, swinging it over to rest on a small footstool hidden beneath the desk. Thus elevated, the fabric of his trousers slides back somewhat, exposing a sliver of flesh to Armand’s eyes for the first time.

Armand gags. To call the leg injured is meaningless. To say it is scarred is simplistic. If Armand didn’t know better, he would never have believed this flesh might be attached to a man still living, never mind that that man might still have some semblance of control over it. There is nothing human about it, grotesque and twisted and red, save for gruesome black patches that appear and disappear as Jean twists, trying for comfort or at least the cessation of pain.

“Is it all like that?” Armand asks, not sure he truly wishes to know. “Under his clothes – the rest of him?”

Jussac nods.

“Show me,” Armand demands compulsively.

Jussac shakes his head.

“Show me!” Armand cries.

Jussac repeats the shake of his head. “He would not wish you to see.”

“He wouldn’t know!”

“Still.”

Behind the desk, Jean opens a drawer. It draws Armand’s attention, thinking that Jean is about to review a file or write a letter. Armand is desperate to know, suddenly. How does Jean pass his time? How does he occupy himself? Beyond meetings in which he is exploited for his mind and held in contempt for his body – beyond court appearances in which Jean’s injuries will render him impotent – beyond a gruesome faith in the holy powers of his dead lover’s bones – what does Jean’s life contain?

Jean reaches into the drawer. From it he extracts a decanter and a glass. Armand watches in numb horror as Jean pours amber-colored liquid from one into the other, and then drinks it all down in a single draught, without the slightest change in his expression.

“It’s not wine,” Jussac says unnecessarily from Armand’s side. “Wine isn’t strong enough to numb him. The pain is constant. Liquor helps more. Recently, the physician Lemay suggested laudanum.”

Jean sets the glass down. From the drawer he draws a second bottle, this one square-sided and opaque. Into the dregs of his liquor Jean pours a thin line of murky white liquid.

“Lemay is a good man who doesn’t understand the extremes to which a man can be driven by pain or grief,” Jussac adds. “Within a month Jean will be addicted.”

“And then?” Armand whispers.

Jussac shrugs. “And then he will die. The laudanum is weakening his heart. It will give out during an audience at court. His friends and family – those who remain – will be grateful. Everyone knows he’s suicidal. For him to die of heart failure, to not commit the mortal sin of self-destruction, will be received as the greatest blessing by those he leaves behind. He’ll be buried with full Catholic rites. Everyone will breathe a great sigh of relief. They’ll be sad for the proper amount of time. The King a little longer than the rest, and the Queen a little longer than he. Then the King will appoint a new Minister of War. A much less competent one, naturally. Within the year Spain will be victorious over France.”

Armand’s cry is low and shocked. It’s not for France. He cares nothing, in this moment, for France. All his grief is focused on the man who slumps in his chair, the brilliant blue of his eyes slowly clouding over as his face relaxes into the lassitude of a drugged stupor.

“He loved me,” Armand says bleakly. His fears and doubts all vanish, swept away on the twin tides of self-realization and self-loathing. “It was never intellectual to him. Never a matter of money or power. He loved _me_. Not my palace or my ministry or my cardinalship. I.”

“Yes,” Jussac says.

“When he begged me for intimacy, to alter my ways, to scale back my gambits, it was not to fetter me. Not to break me or to ask me to be less or other than I am. It was out of the love he bore me, and wished to see me bear him in return.”

“Yes,” Jussac says.

“I wouldn’t listen,” Armand says, damning himself with every word. “I thought the worse of him for asking. I thought – God, what I thought! How could I have been so blind?”

“Men often are,” Jussac says, “when it comes to love.”

“If you are waiting for me to realize, in a flash of revelation, that I love Jean, you are waiting in vain. That is the one thing I have never doubted.”

“You have never doubted far more than that one thing,” the spirit says, with a flash of Jussac’s humor. “But you are as steadfast in your doubts as you are in your certainties. When you are certain, when you believe, you do it with your whole heart. And when you doubt, it is the same.”

And Armand had doubted Jean. Doubted whether Jean’s feelings were true. Doubted whether, at the end of the day, Jean might have taken up with Armand for all the many colder reasons a man takes up with a lover.

No. _Say truly._ Armand had never truly believed that Jean had sought Armand out for his power or wealth. That has been a smokescreen, a diversion, one of the many justifications Armand has used over the years to justify the distance which he has persisted in maintaining between them. The truth is harsher.

Jean had had little choice in his lovers, after all. Men willing to defy the church’s dictates are few. Men who would not betray the secret are even fewer. Armand is one of the only two men in the Kingdom with more to lose in that regard than Jean – and the King is married.

Why else would Jean take up with Armand? Jean the brave, Jean the honest, Jean the loyal – with he, with Armand, with the grand deceiver? Why else, save lack of choice? Why else stay with Armand, with all of Armand’s demands, and difficulties, and damage? Armand has nothing to offer a lover – that is to say, he has many things; but they are not things which interest Jean. Jean cares nothing for Armand’s wealth or power. Jean would never think of the advantages to be gained by holding sway over the Cardinal. Jean thinks of family. Of closeness. Of togetherness. Of caring. Have not the spirits told Richelieu the same thing? Armand has failed to give Jean what he truly wants – what he truly needs.

This then is the truth: at some level, that has been purposeful. At some level, Armand has always believed that Jean’s love for him cannot be real. At some level, Armand has always believed himself incapable of earning anyone’s devotion. He has doubted Jean from the beginning. He has acted according to that doubt.

And this is the result.

“I have wronged you,” Armand whispers futilely to the ruin of Jean Treville. “Beloved, I am so sorry.”

Jean doesn’t hear him. No one can, in the world of the living. But even if Armand had been solid and present, Jean wouldn’t hear him. Jean is beyond the sound of voices, at least for the time. Jean is beyond his pain.

“Do you wish to make amends?” Jussac asks.

“More than anything.”

“Then you know what to do.”

In an illuminated instant Armand _does_ know. The spirit’s words open a gate in his mind; he sees what he has been granted. The three spirits. The lessons. The past, the present, and the future. The opportunity to change what might be. The opportunity to change what is. The opportunity to change, no codicils appended.

Armand whirls upon Jussac and seizes his hands. “Take me back,” he demands. No, he doesn’t demand it; he begs it. He has no power here, and he knows it, and yet he is prepared to do anything, pay any price, to save everything that is dear to him. “Take me back. Let me fix it! Let me change!”

If he _can_ be changed. If it’s not too late already. Armand has pushed Jean away, not just today or yesterday but for days and months and years before. Where does a chain of events begin? _Does_ it have a discernable beginning? Or are the efforts of a man, meaningful to him though they may be, as futile as those of an ant who runs from a waterfall, and is drowned mere moments later for its struggles?

But Jussac smiles.

“Would I have shown you this if you were past all hope?” he asks rhetorically.

Armand’s eyes widen. It avails him nothing: the world still blurs around him, and when it clears, Armand is back in his own bed, blinking at the ceiling as dawn breaks on Christmas morning.


	6. Chapter 6

In the small office outside Richelieu’s bedchamber, the clock begins to strike six. Richelieu leaps out of bed and seizes his dressing-gown. He does not think to question whether he will succeed at these actions; though, when the dressing-gown comes quickly to hand, he finds himself staring at it for a moment in blank confusion. After a night – an eternity – of being set apart from the physical world, to have it respond so quickly to his body is astonishing.

The confusion lasts only a moment. Then he is touching the bell for his valet, and hurrying out to meet him.

Richelieu’s valet is a greying man of many years. His sedate garb does not conceal that he had been a soldier – indeed, a Red Guard – before a campaign injury had forced retirement and a slim purse had necessitated a second career. Nor does his usually reserved visage manage to conceal, this morning, the astonishment he feels upon being ordered to dispense with all unnecessary rituals of grooming and find Richelieu something to wear that can be ridden in.

Still, he obeys, and Richelieu is hurrying out of his chambers within half an hour. He intends to tell Jussac or Mme. Renaud – whomever he finds first – that he is going back to Paris immediately, and old Father Joseph can bury his mother, for all Armand – or Susanne – will care. He does not intend to tell them why, but Jussac, at least, will guess.

It is convenient, then, that Jussac is just mounting the stairs as Richelieu turns the first corner.

“Your Eminence!” Jussac says, sounding pleased. “I was just coming to see if you were awake yet, for there is something I must acquaint you with.”

“It can wait,” Richelieu says, “whatever it is. I am going back to Paris.”

“What?” Jussac looks shocked. “But – you can’t!”

Richelieu shakes his head impatiently. “My guests may go hang,” he says plainly. “As for my mother – ” he has to break off for a moment, helpless to suppress a wild peal of laughter. “My mother would approve.”

“But – Paris? Why?” Jussac’s shock has not noticeably abated. Richelieu notes it, absently, then stops and makes himself take better stock of the situation. His first plan to the contrary, Richelieu begins to realize that he cannot simply jump onto the first horse to be saddled and ride pell-mell back to Paris. If for no other reason than because his Guard, concluding by such behavior that Richelieu had taken leave of his senses, would ride out after him and drag him back – probably sending for the county doctor into the bargain.

An alternative approach is therefore required.

“Jussac, will it surprise you to hear me say that I am a fool?” Richelieu begins carefully.

The smile that flashes over Jussac’s face is a familiar one, and Jussac has no way of knowing that Richelieu has seen it most recently on the face of a spirit who had borrowed Jussac’s seeming. “Of course not,” Jussac says, somewhat wryly. “Dare I ask what foolishness you have engaged in this time?”

For a moment Richelieu considers his words carefully. Then he remembers what he’d seen; what the spirits had shown him. Not the most recent visitation. The one before, the vision of the present. The one that had shown Bernajoux and Boisrenard and Cahusac sharing wine and laughter with Richelieu’s lover, whom they count as a friend.

Richelieu’s officers share a brotherhood of their own. Jussac must therefore consider Jean a friend too; and Richelieu admits to himself also, for the first time without pretending otherwise, that Jussac’s relationship with Richelieu could be described likewise.

Therefore Richelieu is blunt. “I have left Treville behind in Paris, when he would have come with me, out of foolishness and pride and a number of other things which – forgive me – I will keep private.”

Astonishment appears on Jussac’s face. It’s quickly followed by another emotion that Richelieu identifies, after a moment, as the equally astonishing hybrid of relief and joy.

“Thank God,” Jussac says plainly. “I was beginning to think we would have to thump you over the head repeatedly in order to finally make you realize how badly you’ve been mismanaging this whole affair.”

Richelieu spares a moment for relief of his own, ignoring the small flame of shame and ignominy: this reaction is certainly to be preferred to confusion, even if it does speak to how truly ignorant and foolish Richelieu has been this entire time. With one point, however, he must quibble. “My relationship with Treville is not to be relegated to the status of an affair. It is neither fleeting nor meaningless. My error has been to treat it that way; I will not see that error compounded.”

Jussac covers his widening smile with a most correct bow of acknowledgement. “And so – ”

“And so I must return to Paris immediately.”

“There to throw yourself at your lover’s feet and beg his forgiveness?”

Richelieu frowns a little at this picture, but owns to himself, with a sigh, that were that to be the price Jean requires for forgiveness, Richelieu will pay it, and gladly. “Just so.”

“Then I will have the pleasure of informing you that no journey will be necessary.”

This is a mode in which Jussac sometimes falls when he particularly wishes to tweak Richelieu; or, more rarely, when Jussac has extremely favorable intelligence to present to the Cardinal. Jussac is grinning and relieved, and Richelieu is suddenly trembling on the edge of an eager, excited hope.

“Speak on,” Richelieu entreats.

“Your lover is already on his way, and should arrive shortly.”

Richelieu curtails his first, instinctive denial: Jussac has no way of knowing, and Richelieu cannot tell him, that Richelieu has evidence to the contrary. Jussac would not believe that Richelieu has it from an angelic visitation, which had proved that Jean had still been sitting at the Palais-Cardinal two hours ago. “How comes this miracle about?” he asks instead, leadingly.

Jussac crosses his arms. “Armand, you haven’t been fooling anyone,” he says plainly. “You’ve been behaving badly, and it’s frankly a miracle that Jean still gives you the time of day. We’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses, but when you came down here without Jean, we realized that rather more of a push was in order.”

“By ‘we’, you mean to refer to – ”

“The usual suspects, yes.”

(Jussac, Bernajoux, Boisrenard and Cahusac have been known to use this term to refer to themselves. A number of duels have been fought over Treville’s four troublemakers’ adoption of a similar collective nickname, _inseparables,_ which the Guards call imitation, and do not take as flattery. The Musketeers, naturally, claim to have invented the scheme first.)

This revelation of Richelieu’s officers’ collusion hardly comes as a surprise. They collude on many matters, from drinking to gaming to military matters of import. Even the notion that they might collude on more romantic issues is not wholly new. Cahusac had not gotten married on his own, as Richelieu recalls. It is probably fortunate for all concerned that Bernajoux and Boisrenard have each other, and Jussac has never in his life shown the smallest particle of romantic or sexual interest in another being. Paris – possibly France entire – would not sustain a repeat performance of what Richelieu’s officers had termed _courtship_.

And yet perhaps not so fortunate: for, having coupled off as many of their own as they are ever like to, they have turned their not-so-tender mercies to Richelieu.

“What have you done?” Richelieu demands.

Jussac has the temerity to laugh. “Nothing so terrible; close your mouth, Richelieu, remember you’re a Cardinal. In fact, while the topic is raised, I might inquire when you’ll next be hearing confession. I’m afraid I’ve sinned.”

“With one breath you say you’ve done nothing terrible, then, with the next, you speak of the need for absolution. Jussac – ”

“A little penance will be fine; unless a lie has become a mortal sin since the last time I’ve told one.”

“It has not. Jussac, what lie have you told?”

Jussac endeavors to look contrite. “In point of fact it was Bernajoux – ”

“Jussac!”

“Looked at properly it isn’t even a lie.”

Richelieu closes his eyes briefly and says a silent prayer for patience.

Jussac is smiling when Richelieu opens his eyes again. He says, “Well, you’ve realized you’ve been a fool, and that you should have asked Treville to come, or at least agreed to it when he offered. So the fact that we told him as much yesterday is less of a lie and more of an advance warning.”

“You told Jean that yesterday,” Richelieu says slowly.

“Well, technically – Bernajoux did.”

“But – ” But then how came Jean to have still been sitting at the Palais-Cardinal at four this morning?

“And technically – ” Jussac looks out the window, to where the sun is just risen – “Bernajoux told Treville that two days ago. They should have set out yesterday morning, and with God’s blessing they’ll be here shortly.”

“But – ” Richelieu repeats, then falls silent. His mental powers are considerable, but strain them as he might, he cannot find a way to challenge Jussac’s blithe certainties without straying into spiritual matters.

“It may be a trifle awkward, with your guests due to arrive today, as well,” Jussac concedes. “I’ll have a word with Mme. Renaud. She can delay them somewhat, no doubt, while you reaffirm your foolishness to your lover in person.”

Jussac manages to deliver this statement with a straight face, which is much to his credit. Richelieu would ordinarily have something to say on the topic of innuendo, but his mind is taken up with other matters. Visions of reaffirming his foolishness to Jean fill his mind, only to be jostled out of the way by a cacophony of other thoughts: how to manage having Jean present at the horrible brutal calculating affair Richelieu had arranged for his mother’s funeral; what to tell Mme. Renaud about Jean, and which guest chamber to put Jean in, that will best afford congress with Armand’s rooms; how properly to discipline his officers for this theoretical breach of protocol, which will be a necessary piece of theatre in which they will all engage for appearance’s sake, without actually involving punishment; and how Armand will look upon his lover in the flesh, without seeing instead the terrible vision of the future with which he had been visited.

“My guests aren’t arriving until the day _after_ Christmas,” is what Richelieu says, when he manages to seize a single line of thought from the clamor.

“Today _is_ the day after Christmas,” Jussac says, in a tone of patience.

“What?” Richelieu is too surprised to hide it. “No, we arrived yesterday, and so today – ”

“We arrived two days gone,” Jussac corrects. “You spent yesterday in seclusion, mourning and meditating. Or so you told your valet. – Richelieu – Armand – what is it? You’ve gone pale as a spirit!”

_Pale as a spirit._ Richelieu laughs, hearing the thin, almost hysterical sound. Pale, no doubt, as the spirit who – wearing Richelieu’s face – had told his valet that he would be spending yesterday in solitude.

Why had Richelieu thought that only an hour had been passing for each visitation? The striking of the clock, hadn’t it been? But a clock strikes the same number twice a day. Not one hour, then, but thirteen. Thirteen hours – the thirteenth hour – the holy hour. _Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him._

Then that means – rather than three hours passing – if it had instead been thirty-nine –

“Bernajoux spoke to Jean on Christmas Eve, didn’t he,” Richelieu says slowly. He works the timeline out in his mind. Jean drinking with the other Guards at the Palais-Cardinal, saying _my place is in Paris._ The outcry that had begun – and the precipitous way in which the spirits had taken Richelieu from that place.

_The abrupt departure was regrettable, but necessary,_ the spirits had said. They had taken him away before he could learn too much. That had been when Bernajoux had spoken, Richelieu is sure of it.

Jean and the Guards had not left immediately. Too drunk, no doubt, for a start. And, as it had been Christmas Eve, Treville would have wanted to return to the garrison and see his Musketeers safely home. Indeed, Richelieu had been at the garrison on Christmas morning, as affirmed by the spirits. Treville had still been there.

Treville had been there, yes. And then he’d saddled a horse and ridden out, Richelieu had known not where. Perhaps – perhaps –

“I suspected so,” Jussac is saying, in response to Richelieu’s spoken words. “I stayed up last night, in case they got in in the small hours. They are not yet come; therefore they should be arriving today, along with the rest of your guests.”

There’s a cough at Richelieu’s shoulder. Both he and Jussac turn. One of the servants – a maid who’d come with them from Paris – is hovering there.

“Yes, Sally, what is it?” Richelieu asks. Renewed hope is clawing its way up his chest and into his throat; his voice is hoarse.

“Your pardon, m’lord, but there’s a gentleman just arrived,” Sally says. “The Comte de Treville.”

Richelieu blinks rapidly. The world does not blur.

“I will go down and meet him directly,” he says, beginning to smile.

Jussac coughs. “Perhaps you should retire to the drawing-room, instead, and Sally can show the Comte up there?”

“What? Why?” Richelieu pauses, already half-turned to move for the stairs.

The look Jussac gives Richelieu is significant. “Because I believe you and the Comte have a great deal to discuss, and none of it suitable for the entry hall.”

Richelieu translates this, after a moment’s thought, as _I don’t trust you not to kiss him the moment you see him again, in this odd mood you’re in, and while the senior servants are trustworthy enough there’s bound to be a stable-boy or under-gardener about who will tell tales._

Richelieu would very much like to dispute this vision of events, but, alas, his good sense forces him to recognize the justice of Jussac’s concern. With an effort he masters his desire to run down immediately and inclines his head in acceptance.

“The _small_ drawing-room,” Richelieu specifies. That one that is for the family only, and the servants have long been trained not to enter it without loud and repeated warning, nor to pay any attention to what might be transpiring within it. It has never yet been used for an illicit tryst of this nature, but the Richelieu family has been scheming in one way or another for Armand’s whole life. It’s fitting, in its way, that the strictures Susanne had set in place for her family’s advancement should end by being used in this fashion.

“I’ll see to it,” Jussac says before Sally can acknowledge these orders. “Sally may prepare a tray, and warn your brother to make himself scarce for a while.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Sally says. She vanishes before Richelieu has even said a word, and Richelieu is left to shake his head and marvel at the connivances of his most trusted servants.

“Go on,” Jussac says to Richelieu, giving him a none-too-gentle nudge in the direction of the private drawing-room. “I’ll have your Captain to you shortly.”

“You’re my Captain,” Richelieu says in reply, attempting to convey how appreciative he is – has always been – for Jussac’s service and friendship.

“Pah,” Jussac says succinctly, eyes twinkling. He, too, vanishes down the stairs before Richelieu may invent an appropriate response.

Richelieu grumbles to himself somewhat, but proceeds down the corridor in the opposite direction. His thoughts are soon wholly engaged in the task of devising what, exactly, to say to Jean to demonstrate Richelieu’s sincere regret, contrition, and love.

* * *

Richelieu reaches the small drawing-room before the butler has finished arranging the morning’s fire in it, and has to maintain the appearance of calm until the man finishes his work and leaves Richelieu to fidget in peace. This fidgeting does not help as much as Richelieu had hoped, however, and he is half-mad with impatience and eagerness by the time Sally announces Treville.

“Thank you, Sally,” Richelieu says, creditably enough, and Sally takes the liberty of smiling to herself as she withdraws.

Treville enters the room hesitantly, and seems only to lose in confidence when he catches sight of Richelieu. He opens his mouth in great haste and then does not speak.

Richelieu is not so afflicted. “Jean,” he breathes, and does not restrain himself from crossing the distance between them and taking his lover into his arms.

Treville at first is more like a statue than a living being in Richelieu’s embrace. After a few moments have passed, however, some warmth seems to reenter him. “Armand?” he says tentatively.

Richelieu is resting his cheek against the crown of his lover’s head, enjoying to the fullest that height advantage which permits him to feel so thoroughly in possession of his heart’s greatest desire. “Yes, beloved?”

No response is forthcoming. At length Armand masters himself enough to pull back somewhat, the better to meet his lover’s gaze. “What is it?” he prompts again.

Treville appears dazed. “You – you don’t mind that I’ve come?”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Richelieu says fervently. “If you only knew how glad I am that you are here!”

Treville reaches for him. Richelieu leans forward, expecting a caress, and is somewhat befuddled when Treville’s hand lands, not on cheek or chest, but on Armand’s high forehead.

“Has the doctor been?” Treville demands. “You did not say your mother’s illness had been infectious! Armand, what could you have been thinking? When did you first begin to feel ill?”

“Ill? I am not ill – ”

“You do not seem feverish, but your behavior – ”

This injures Richelieu. “Being glad to see my heart’s desire is now a sign of illness?” he demands.

Treville, rather than being reassured, pales further. “Good God, is it as bad as that?”

“I am not ill,” Richelieu repeats. Then honesty compels him to admit: “Except perhaps in my soul.”

“In your soul?” Treville’s voice drops. “You – you need to confess?”

Richelieu shakes his head impatiently, but pauses. That same diplomatic instinct which has served him well over the course of his long and storied career warns him now that their conversation has steered itself into a dangerous morass. He replays it rapidly in his mind and finds the root of the matter.

“I assure you,” Richelieu says with sincere assurance, “I am in no danger of my life. When I spoke of my soul, I did not refer to any imminent need for cleansing. I mean that I have become aware – quite recently – since leaving Paris, in fact – that I have made some very grave errors. And I am so relieved to see you here – ” he pauses for breath, then commits himself: “ – not only because of the very great love which I bear you, which would have me pleased to be by your side always, but also because it gives me the opportunity to at once begin to repair some of the injury I know myself to have done you.”

If Treville had, at the beginning of this speech, been so pale as to excite worry, he is by the end of it red enough that the untutored might have suspected him flush with drink or passion. “Armand!”

“I am sorry,” Richelieu says plainly, before he can lose his nerve.

Treville’s eyes widen. He temporarily loses the power of speech, or so it is assumed by his lover, who can in no other way account for Treville’s silence.

“Will you sit down?” Richelieu tries a moment later. “I have a great deal more to say, and you may be more comfortable seated.”

Treville sits, though he appears to be in a daze. Intentionally or accidentally, he chooses a love-seat rather than a solitary chair. Richelieu finds his own courage and sits down on the other cushion. He dares to reach out and gather Treville’s hands up in his. Treville, perhaps still dazed, permits this uncharacteristic gesture of affection.

Silence settles briefly between them. Richelieu sees that it is his to speak. That is only just, as it is he who has explanations to make. But where to begin?

“I hated my mother,” Richelieu says.

Treville’s lips part in astonishment; he holds his peace, however, and Richelieu is allowed to proceed.

“I feared her, too,” Richelieu continues. “Do not think so ill of me in not loving her, for she did not love me, either, nor any of my siblings. She loved only one thing – at least – ” (thinking of her visitation, and the chance it has granted him) “ – in life, in her actions, she seemed to love only one thing.”

“Money?” Treville guesses, somewhat sadly.

“Power,” Richelieu corrects ruefully. “Money is a form of power, and so she loved it, but she did not disdain the other kinds. Her children were all to become great; we were all to become powerful. Anything that was not in service of that goal was swept aside. This included the softer emotions. Pity. Mercy. Compassion.”

“Love,” Treville says.

“Yes,” Richelieu admits. Before Treville’s countenance can fill with the sadness Richelieu knows is lurking, he adds: “But we – my siblings and I – we were all failures to Susanne, in one way or another. This is mine: I love.”

“That is not a failing,” Treville says vehemently.

Richelieu tightens his hands around Treville’s and tries to laugh with as little bitterness as possible. “It would have been, to her,” he says. “She did not know how I felt for you – but she would have condemned it, and not because of your sex or mine.”

Treville’s shrug is stiff. “Even so she did – ”

“I understand; it beggars imagination, perhaps, that I should be so swayed by her condemnation. Do I not defy it from every other quarter in which it comes?”

“Even mine,” Treville says, trying to laugh, in which endeavor he does not succeed.

“I wish I could explain it. My mother’s lessons prick me in a way that the slings and arrows of another do not,” Richelieu says, feeling an unaccustomed helplessness steal over him. “I – I cannot say quite why. I will try – later, forgive me, it must be later – but I cannot promise to succeed.”

“If you reserve that for later, what do you have to say for yourself now?” Having failed to laugh, Treville attempts next to smile. He achieves only to turn the corner of his lips upright.

“I hated my mother,” Richelieu repeats. “So did everyone else who knew her. This is not a funeral, Jean. The people I have invited – the person whom I was, when I came here – do not come here to grieve. We are come to arrange the disposition of power in her absence.”

“You – ” Treville begins, then stops.

“And when you offered to come!” Richelieu pauses to shiver. “You had no idea – I was so afraid.” He struggles to find words, an unaccustomed feeling, and one that does nothing to dispel his sense of helplessness. “With my mother I was always my worst self,” he says at last. “The person she wanted me to be, the person she tried to make of me – and perhaps I never truly was that person – or perhaps I only flatter myself – but wholly or partially, I was closest to that person when I was in her presence.”

Treville shakes his head. Richelieu sees that he does not understand.

Richelieu tries again. “Anything I have gained, in humanity or humility, by being apart from her, fell away from me in her presence. At the funeral it was to be just the same. I came here to be my base self. Ruthless and cold and calculating – ”

“If you think,” Treville says, wounded and proud, “that I have waited until now, to learn that you have that capability within yourself – ”

“I was ashamed!” Richelieu cries, and as it bursts from his lips he knows it at last to be the truth.

Treville looks at him. “You are never ashamed.”

“Before the world – no.” Anther truth comes to Richelieu then, and he has to look down, break that too-honest gaze, though the sight of his own dirty hands daring to defile Treville’s clean ones is little comfort. “Before you – always.”

“Armand – ”

“From the moment I met you I wished you to think well of me. At first I only wished for your allegiance; then for your respect; then – slowly, as a tree grows – I learned to wish for your love. Yet when I had it I knew despair, for it seemed to me that there was no way you could truly love me. Therefore I believed I had deceived you. Shown you a vision of myself that does not match my innermost soul.

“So, then, I have another sin to confess to you. If I had been a better man I would have told you the truth at once. Let you see my wickedness and become free. But instead I – I was selfish; I wished you to stay with me – I wanted you to continue to look at me with love.”

“Armand,” Jean whispers.

He lifts Armand’s hands with his own; Armand looks up, in time to see, as well as feel, Jean honor them with the touch of his lips.

Armand says, “When you asked to come with me for my mother’s funeral I feared that it would all become undone. I thought anything would be worth preventing that. I was wrong – forgive me, I was wrong!”

“What then changed your mind?” When Armand’s gaze flies up from their joined hands to meet Jean’s, Jean’s upturned mouth becomes a little closer to a smile.

Armand shivers, and tells the closest thing to the truth that he feels himself safe in doing. “I had terrible dreams. They told me the future – a future where I kept on as I had begun – and I did not like what I saw.”

“So you – ”

“I am resolved to change. To care less for power and more for pity and compassion and mercy. And to beg you – to perform whatever act you require, to obtain your forgiveness for the way I have treated you.”

“I have no need for you to suffer,” Jean says gently. “Swear that it will be better from here on out; that is all I require.”

“I swear it.”

“Then I forgive you.”

Armand has to close his eyes. Jean, compassionately, does not comment. He merely settles their joined hands back in his lap.

“What of love?” Armand finds the courage to ask. “When you know me as I truly am – when you see all the blackness that has been in my soul – will you love me, still? Could you promise me that? No; how could you?”

Jean turns his hands in Armand’s grasp, so that Armand becomes the one who is held in Jean’s strong grasp. Says, “Armand, I am not blind. Nor am I naïve, and if I am as good as you think me – which I take leave to doubt – still it does not prevent me from seeing lightning nor hearing thunder. I am not deceived by some rosy vision of yourself. I know the things you have done for power.”

“You do not – ”

“Hush,” Jean says, most sternly. “Listen to me, now; you’ve had your say, and I’ll have mine. Do you think I’ve lived at court this long without learning its ways? Let me enlighten you. I know of a woman who, calling herself Lady Clarick, visited England at about the time of the death of the Duke of Buckingham. I know that, five years ago, a thief was somehow able to gain access to the Queen’s jewels, and cut two prized diamond studs off a ribbon the King had given her; and that, at about the same time, France’s treasury was able to make some payments, that everyone had predicted it could not make, and consequently avoid bankruptcy and the ruination of its credit. I know that the Queen implored me, most ardently, not to seek the thief. I know how, ten years ago, Savoy learned of the orders given my Musketeers concerning Louis-Amadeus’ life. Still more, I know the relationship of those orders to the disappearance of their minister Cluzet. If I chose, I could name the location in which Cluzet is being held. I know – ”

“Stop,” Richelieu entreats. He does not need the services of a looking-glass to know that his face is ashen. He can tell as much by the sound of his voice, which rasps out of his throat with the sound of a chain-gang’s shackles being dragged over stone.

“I do not flatter myself that I know everything,” Treville says, after allowing the silence to linger for a moment. “But I have been convinced that what I know is enough. Now I put it to you. Is it enough, Armand? Do I know enough? Or am I still deceived?”

Jean has named three of the most extreme, most secret, most cold-blooded policy decisions of the past decade. “You know enough,” Armand whispers.

“I knew all of those things when last we spoke in Paris,” Jean says. “I knew all of those things when last I lay with you. I knew all of these things when last I told you that I loved you. I tell you now, Armand, with full knowledge: I love you.”

Armand is reeling. It is inconceivable. He would have sworn that no one had learned these things – that they had been secret from all but those directly involved – and that, if anyone were to discover them, it would not have been Jean. Not Jean. Not Armand’s Jean.

“Is the reverse true, then?” Jean asks sadly, seeming to read Armand’s soul. “I know that I have loved you, not some vision. But – you have always had such a belief that – you think me innocent. Perhaps this alters matters. Perhaps – perhaps it is you who have loved a vision. Perhaps you have not loved _me_.”

This absurd statement clears Armand’s head most effectively. So Jean is more wise to the ways of court than Armand had known. All the better. That does not make Armand love him any the less. The emotion it causes Armand to feel is not betrayal. It is awe and gratitude and deep, spreading relief.

Jean has known all along. Jean forgives him. Jean loves him still.

Armand casts about for the best way to express this. To communicate the love and joy he feels. He encourages it to display itself upon his face, in his bearing, and in his voice when he says, “If you persist in such mad beliefs, I will send for the doctor this moment. Oh, Jean – ”

This time, Jean succeeds in laughing.

* * *

The small clock on the mantle-piece strikes nine, and ten, and then eleven, before the peace of the private drawing-room is disturbed.

(I must beg the reader’s indulgence in drawing a veil over the events of those hours. We have trespassed already into areas where angels might have feared to tread, and some privacy is due, if not to Richelieu, then at least to Treville.)

Their tête-à-tête is broken at last, however. A knock comes upon the door shortly after eleven is struck.

Some short time later, when both of the room’s inhabitants feel themselves ready to receive company, Armand calls, “Yes?”

Sally enters. “Your pardon, m’lord, but there are now half-a-dozen guests arrived. Mme. Renaud begs to inform you that they will soon be wanting their dinner, and is she to serve it without you?”

“No,” Treville says before Richelieu can reply. “No, on no account. Armand, you should go down. And I shall go out this window, which I perceive opens, and arrive by the front gate like all the rest.”

“With no bags or trunks or servants?” Richelieu asks – though, despite his fault-finding, in his secret soul he is delighted to discover his lover enters so readily into deception.

“Servants? Me?” Treville laughs. “No one would expect it of me. As for trunks and bags, I had them sent after me, and they should be just now arriving.”

“Indeed they are, m’lord,” Sally affirms.

“There! You see?” Treville smiles. “Go down. I will see you again shortly.”

Richelieu clears his throat. Sally takes the hint and says, “I must just step down to the end of the hall.”

When the door is closed, Richelieu asks, “I have your promise, then, that you will allow me to protect you?” This refers to a discussion they have just been having, about the funeral Richelieu had planned, and how – short of throwing all the guests out entirely – some portion of the intended scheming will still have to take place.

“You have it,” Treville promises (this is not the first time he has made it; he understands, however, that his lover needs to be reassured).

“Thank you.” Richelieu does not restrict his gratitude to this promise alone. Treville, by the softening around his eyes and mouth, lets Richelieu know that he understands this.

It has been a raw few hours, and though I have given my own promise not to reveal what has been said, I will mention, by way of illustration, that the great Cardinal’s eyes are red.

“Only let me be at your side,” Jean says softly. “You do better to have me there, don’t you?”

“Always,” Armand says, in answer and in promise. “And if you do the same – if you can accept me, and love me, even as I am – then stay with me.”

“You have my promise,” Jean says again.

Armand rises. His reluctance to leave must be obvious, but he knows his duty, and he has the hope of seeing Jean again soon – this evening, even, in private – and so he moves to go.

“Armand,” Jean says.

Armand pauses and looks back at his lover, who is pointing above him. Lining the door’s lintel, as part of the holiday’s decorations, a spray of mistletoe is prominently arranged.

Jean comes over to the door. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and kisses his lover to seal their promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's over :) Thanks for reading, and may you all experience blessings in whatever form suits you best, every one!

**Author's Note:**

> [My Patreon!](https://www.patreon.com/kyele?ty=h)


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